


How the black sheep breathe

by an_earl



Series: Heaven Looms [2]
Category: Chinese Mythology, Xī yóu jì | Journey to the West - Wú Cheng'en, 宝莲灯 | Bǎo Lián Dēng | Lotus Lantern (1999), 宝莲灯 | Lotus Lantern (TV), 宝莲灯前传 | Prelude of Lotus Lantern (TV)
Genre: Angst, Brother-Sister Relationships, Chinese Mythology & Folklore, Drama, Family Drama, Family Secrets, Gen, I mean, Once I figure out how to add pics to AO3 I will attach some, Unlike men, but there are big insinuations of it !!!, hahahahah, like men, me: time to pour my heart into this minor character, no sanseng mu's are getting fridged, or shall I say, otherwise no one will ever see this lol, technically Erlang Shen is also part of journey to the west so I can tag that right, technically there's no graphic depictions of violence, we give ppl characterisations and emotions and motivations
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-04
Updated: 2018-11-25
Packaged: 2018-12-23 19:31:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 36,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11996487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/an_earl/pseuds/an_earl
Summary: Rumours ran rife, baseless accusations piled, the beads of a headdress clinked, and the hammer came down as the order went through.(Didn't you hear?) (Hear what?)Sanseng Mu, our goddess of Mount Hua, lightbringer, has married a filthy, dirty mortal.(And I hear they have a son.)The story of Sanseng Mu and Erlang Shen, and how Erlang Shen came to trap Sanseng Mu beneath Mount Hua. A prequel to Lotus Lantern, the myth, and an extra for An Unadmitted Defeat, the fic.





	1. "Take Chen Xiang and get ready to go-"

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [have you heard](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5798602) by [peradi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/peradi/pseuds/peradi). 



> I did some searching and while not all sources agree, it seems that Yang Chan (杨婵) is Sanseng Mu's real name. 
> 
> Because 'Yang Chan' is so similar looking to the husband's name, Liu 'Yanchang' (刘彦昌) I'm going to go ahead and add a letter "i" into the latter - 彦昌 will be Yianchang instead. This is just for readability, thank you. 
> 
> Erlang Shen's real name is Yang Jian (杨戬）

 

White lies, sweet words, bitter insinuation; a dip of a hill, an east-facing cottage, a place where the entire sunset was caught in a valley. There were words scrawled on notes, a jittery so-called witness, people playing dumb on every turn, a hundred and sixty eight decimated training targets to let out the frustration. Rumours ran rife, baseless accusations piled, the beads of a headdress clinked, and the hammer came down as the order went through.

On a cloudy afternoon, a man knocked on the door.

"I'll get it!"

"No." Sanseng Mu swept up her child and plopped him into her husband's arms. She usually forgot he was getting too big to be picked up already, what with her strength and how normal children were. Chen Xiang fumbled and she cooed at him to let go. Her husband  _'oof-ed!'_ as he sat their son in the crook of his arms and only dropped his dewy eyes when he shot her a suspicious look over Chen Xiang's shoulder.

"It's happened," she said neutrally, fixing the collar on her clothes, and there was nothing she could do but watch the light go out in her husband's face, his lines creasing as if he'd aged ten years in the light speed time in which she'd said finished saying the words.

Words they'd exchanged over a candle light in the middle of the night, words they'd whisper two rooms away from their sleeping baby, when they cherry-picked the best case scenarios and mouthed contingency plan over contingency plan like veterans on a warfront. They'd both played and rewound and replayed this part over in their heads. That there would be a day in which  _this_ day would come.

"Take Chen Xiang and get ready to go," she breathed through the small space between them as she kissed him lightly. Chen Xiang put his hand in her hair and tugged.

"What's _-_ "

"Shh, no, you," her husband, Yianchang, chided, but Sanseng Mu just reached out and tugged on Chen Xiang's hair instead.

The door knocked a second time, steady and light. Yianchang took Chen Xiang to go. Glancing at herself in the yellow mirror as she passed, Senseng Mu put on her best smile. Soft, lithe, and totally unassuming  _-_  a maiden's smile. She opened the door. After years of dreaming up how this would go, she'd familiarised herself with it so much it felt like an old memory that played out a lifetime ago, and now that it was happening  _like this_  instead it was alien. She faltered.

A tall man hid his surprise behind— _he didn't hide his surprise._  He tried to and failed quite spectacularly. Dressed in embroidered civilian clothes — they were a nobleman's clothes, Sanseng Mu mirthfully noted — his hand jumped to brush over his forehead. It was a nervous habit of his. He looked just as much flustered as she was, just an incredibly uncomfortable. The visitor quirked his mouth.

"Three," he said softly.

"Second Brother," Sanseng Mu smirked. She imagined this moment bold, wherein she'd talk without fear and open the door wide. Instead, she only creaked it open far enough to frame her. "Look what the harsh winds have bought to my door."

The man narrowed his eyes but the look was not one of scrutinising.

"Or do you prefer Erlang Shen now? General, 真君? Or perhaps Upholder of Divine Law, 司法天神 these days?" Sanseng Mu remarked, not even listing his name as a probability.

She had no business feeling guilty over it. She really hadn't. Even if the little scrunch of his nose was worth it.

"Three," Yang Jian started, dipping his head, "…Third sis, if you called me anything but 'Second' I'd never forgive you."

They were close once. He chased her in the summer with their little red kite, she bandaged his broken arm after a fall from a tree, he lied about having already eaten when they went hungry, she picked fights with kids who called him 'three-eyed freak.' For he had three eyes but he was not, and she'd never let anyone call him, a  _freak_.

"It's been a long time, hasn't it?" he said.

Nothing had so much gone wrong except that Heaven had favoured one twin over the other. One was driven, stoic and absolutely loyal, the other, stalwart and unyielding in a completely different way. It turned out being about thirty minutes older had its perks. That was what she'd told herself before she'd learnt to accept the truth. That her brother was better at obedience than she ever could be. There were many truths in reality - not least that he'd been born a man and she a woman - but they were so close for so long and now the two measly steps in the doorway between them felt like eons, still widening between them.

"I wish you'd given me a letter beforehand. It would have given me time to fix the place and impress you. I could have gone for a haircut," Sanseng Mu said. Her hair flowed down to her waist, half of it twisted in an elegant up-do. "So is this a family event, or a business trip?"

Yang Jian answered brutally honestly. "This is business."

He always did, and that was what she liked about him.

_But why doesn't Three like me! some motherfucker whined when they were fourteen._

_Because you're ugly, Second Bro stated monotonously._

"Can't you at least pretend you're happy to see me?" Sanseng Mu teased, but it was less a joke that she'd thought.

"I can't."

A silence fell over them. There was something stirring in the air, in the atmosphere above, something bright and carnal. Light silhouetted soft shadows in the clouds and Sanseng Mu couldn't have guessed in a million years that this was how it would go. Yang Jian hadn't come alone. Yang Jian moved to brush a few stray strands of hair away, moving to tuck two parts back into his silver pin. He flitted a finger over the centre of his forehead as he did. Bad habits, she thought, staring; bad habits died hard.

"So. Are you going to let me in?"

" 'Course," and she moved aside before she could decide otherwise.

 

* * *

 

Sanseng Mu shut the door snugly behind him and led them into a small sitting area. It was a humble house. She caught Yang Jian's sight moving shiftily around the place, creasing as it fell upon an undried calligraphy set in someone else's writing. It was her husband's writing. Opening a cupboard, she laid out the best china. Luxuriously painted blue and white porcelain, each delicate cup depicting a different folk story. A flock of birds in a half circle, a man and woman on top, another with a figure stretching a bow towards the sun.

"Sit."

"Thank you."

"I have your favourite. Oolong tea."

"Thank you."

"Are you going to say something other than that?"

"Not yet."

They sipped down scorching hot tea at the same time. She could have been more discreet with things, what with her and her husband technically being in hiding, but this was still her home and how discreet did they need to be when they lived in the middle of nowhere in a valley no one could make it out of, save for her godly mountaineering skills?

Even as a youth, Yang Jian had stacked his bamboo books in perfectly symmetrical stands. Any stray piece of paper was purged away and he didn't shy from using magic to keep it like that. It was not untidy, but Sanseng Mu's sitting room was full of signs of usage. The calligraphy was of course still drying, her husband's bound, blue-cover books were strewn over a wooden table and then onto the floor, and there were children's toys lying about. On the counter, under the table they were currently sitting at, on a chair, she'd spotted one in the teacup cupboard, and there was a rocking horse's head poked out from the kitchen. The kitchen.

"You were always the messy one, growing up," Yang Jian chided with a huff, but the look that he gave each and every one of those mundane things was intent, as if he was holding back from just  _looking_  at it.

"No," Sanseng Mu bit back over her cup, "I was the I-had-it-together one. We both know you couldn't sleep until you straightened the rug in your room."

"Yeah. Yeah."

"But I'm glad," Sanseng Mu took another sip. She magicked the temperature of the tea into something drinkable. "You never quit at any speck of dust until it was gone," she said brightly, "and now you're doing it on the battlefield. Just as well. It took too long for Heaven to recognise you, you know." Sanseng Mu lifted her cup. By the time it hit their lips, it would have turned into wine.

"Congratulations on your new position!"

Yang Jian was taken aback, his brows lifting high before dropping quickly. "Thank you." He seemed to stop a grin by shoving the teacup into his face, and then his expression changed so suddenly that Sanseng Mu frowned at it. It was not as if Yang Jian was adverse to drinking.

"The position…it's good. Good for my people, my Mei Shan comrades are finally getting recognition too."

"And Xiao Tian," Sanseng Mu chuckled. "Dear Xiao Tian as well." The dog she'd helped him hide for the better part of their childhood.

Yang Jian perked at that as Senseng Mu giggled. Yang Jian leant forward to refill the cups, pouring Sanseng Mu's first. Sanseng Mu tapped her finger on the table, a show of politeness. "Why didn't you bring him?" Sanseng Mu thought, suddenly, "It's not as if we're strangers."

"I didn't think it wise. Xiao Tian's very lively, you know. He'll startle small children."

Sanseng Mu nodded wryly, showing no other reaction. They lifted their cups, clinking them over the table and spilling oolong-turned-wine over a broken bamboo book piece and a carved wooden toy. Yang Jian was getting tense and she braced for what would come next.

When he lifted his head, Sanseng Mu did not expect that face on him. That dip his lips made that did not tell a happy story, a sad and solemn look that looked like he was pleading.

"Three," he started, and his voice sounded like the time he was consoling her when she was multitasking between crying and fixing his broken arm, " _Three,_  will you not even let me see my nephew?"

She felt a great wave of moroseness fall over her like a veil.

"So you've come to see my son and not me? How disheartening, brother."

Like a red wedding veil — one that she lifted over herself and quietly sulked under as she overthought in the only carriage the village could provide, a rickety thing that bobbed her headdress up and down to show glimpses of the kind baker man that rode her out from the mountains to the small ceremony. It was both the most happiest and loneliest time of her life, screw Heaven if she had any idea why.

_She was getting married to the man she totally, inexplicably, voluminously, egregiously loved, the only man for her in this life and then after. And at the same time, she felt such a keen sadness stab though her: that she would be alone except for the few kind villagers who didn't know who she truly was, that her only family could not be there for her wedding day._

And now her fears were realised to the full extent, even if they were numbed, pushed away, disregarded, even, before as she let in the face of Heaven's fury. Her fears that it  _was_  going down like this: that when Heaven finally came to knock on her door, it was her  _Second Brother_ that they chose to send. Yang Jian had not asked to see her husband, her soul, her love, at all. He'd dismissed him like he dismissed the shadow of his things in the room, something less than a glower at them before he forgot it in that very same instance. Yang Jian had asked for her son instead, and there was nothing but reverence in his voice.

"My nephew, Three. Where is he?"

She slammed her cup down. Slammed it so hard that the painted cowherd and weaver girl cracked apart down the middle of the bridge made of birds on the porcelain.

"Second Brother, if this is about—"

The skin on Yang Jian's forehead split open. Without warning, a large, beady eye watched her in line with the others before it abruptly shot to the right. Yang Jian continued to wait for her to finish. His cup of tea hovered, the steam wafting up into the air. His two eyes were fixed totally on her. His Sky Eye was opened wide, glaring deftly at something to the side.

Sanseng Mu spun to the right. Through the crack of the wooden door the first thing she noticed was the red of a ribbon. A hair tie. Her heart jumped into her throat, her stomach plummeted to somewhere else as she forced her aura back down into a pit.

"I think we're being watched, Three."

Sanseng Mu couldn't keep her nerves down. Without thinking about it, without thinking otherwise, she fluttered immediately to the door. There was not a full second between the moment she left her seat and when she pulled open the door and stood so that she blocked Yang Jian's eye.

 _"Chen Xiang!"_  she was whispering now,  _"Chen Xiang, what are you — where's your father?! Why…"_

But there was no time to consider why. Chen Xiang flinched, wobbling dangerously back before he fell with little, bumbling child steps. There was a strange, startled look in his eyes. She hadn't even had the heart to think of how Chen Xiang had never seen her use her powers before. But bless the boy, Chen Xiang was young and young ones were  _frighteningly_  fearless. Chen Xiang quickly picked himself up.

 _"Dad's behind me,"_  he whispered back, catching on to the game. He was always too smart for his own good.

"Three?"

She glanced behind. All three of Yang Jian's eyes were fixed to the front now, not looking at what wasn't made privy to him. They stayed that way. She glanced back to her son.

Sanseng Mu's world was breaking down around her. Chen Xiang must have realised that his father was taking him in the longboat and rowing away. If they'd only made it into the mountains, into the serpentine meanders that made a giant maze, they might have had a chance. But they'd never gone rowing without all the three of them present. Yianchang wouldn't have told Chen Xiang what was going on, because they'd both decided that he didn't need to know. Chen Xiang didn't need to know  _anything_  unless the apocalypse was coming and his name was on the list. It seemed that that analogy was closer than they thought and now she hated herself for even coming up with it. So Chen Xiang must have jumped off and ran down the banks back home for his mother. He was too good a kid.

Her husband rounded the corner, huffing profusely with his mouth closed in a thin, tight line. They locked eyes. Yianchang's demeanour changed straight from worry to determination without anything in between. He nodded silently. Everything would depend on Sanseng Mu's judgement now. Yianchang trusted her unconditionally, but Sanseng Mu had a mind full of  _conditions._  It was what the world had always given her.

"Three." Yang Jian piped up behind her again.

Sanseng Mu took Chen Xiang's hand as he came up, putting her lips to it briefly before she gave him a goofy smile. Chen Xiang beamed, near lighting up like a lightning bug.

"Chen Xiang," she said in a sunny voice, "Come. Meet your family, Chen Xiang."

Chen Xiang walked hand-in-hand with her into the room. Yang Jian rose from his seat. Someone of Yang Jian's calibre didn't rise for anyone except for the very select few who commanded him. But, despite herself, Sanseng Mu's lips curled. How like Second Brother, to take it like a military introduction, when he finally gave himself permission to look at Chen Xiang who skipped in front of him. Chen Xiang beamed. The missing bottom tooth seemed to surprise Yang Jian. Sanseng Mu put a hand to her mouth like a flustered palace girl.

Then, slowly, Yang Jian lowered himself to a knee.

Sanseng Mu nodded to Chen Xiang. "Chen Xiang. This is your Uncle, Yang Jian."

The novelty of Yang Jian's three eyes had already worn off and Chen Xiang was nodding enthusiastically at him as they blinked in unison.

Yang Jian tipped his head slightly. "It's very, very nice to meet you, Chen Xiang."

Chen Xiang, his blood running with the stories Yianchang told him, held up his arms and saluted Yang Jian. It was a gentleman fighter's salute: wherein one punched one's right fist into their left palm, a sign of halting conflict, of harmony. "Nice to meet you, Uncle!"

Yang Jian's eyes widened.

Then, after a moment's delay, an unsure delay, he smiled back. He smiled largely, until the corners of his eyes creased and his brows furrowed and colour flushed his cheeks. Perhaps out of habit, or the sight just triggered the routine-like Upholder of Law inside him, he lifted his arms and mirrored the salute strongly. Looking a little affronted, Chen Xiang shifted his lopsided salute, fixing it to match his Uncle's.

As Sanseng Mu watched, she couldn't help but hold back a laugh, that sight of Yang Jian being so utterly clueless but so absolutely warm to the point where his aura was overheating from underneath him. If she'd known it would be like this she would have let him meet Chen Xiang in the first place, the cheeky child.

"Two eyes," Yang Jian started, all his three unabashedly watching Chen Xiang in immeasurable wonder. "What a pity."

"He takes after his mother," Sanseng Mu added.

"Oh I wouldn't doubt it, Three."

She shared a low chuckle with her Second Brother at that. Chen Xiang, upon not being let in or understanding the joke, twisted his lips. "Why do you call Mum Three?" he asked.

Yang Jian sighed. It was a feigned, spirited sigh, the type you would do at children when they asked what was a hard question to them and you had to abide in their excitement.

"Because your mother is my Third Sister, 三妹. And I am her Second Brother. She has many names, including Third Goddess 三娘, Third Princess 三圣宫主, and of course, Sanseng Mu 三圣母. So I call her 'Three.'"

"Nobody calls me that except you," Sanseng Mu said, crossing her arms. "You don't see me using 'Two,' " she said with feigned indignity. She used to do — during the old times, but now was not the same as then. There was something innocent and childish about still calling him 'Two,' but she'd stopped sometime when they had left their training.

Chen Xiang seemed to find that extremely amusing. He chuckled loudly until the room was filled with his laughter. Yang Jian chuckled quietly along with him. It was Sanseng Mu's turn to be left out of the very joke she made.

"Why do you have three eyes?" Chen Xiang asked his Uncle. Chen Xiang turned to look at Sanseng Mu tentatively. "Why could you move so fast? Can I do that later? Can you show me again?!"

Sanseng Mu's jaw clenched. She watched Yang Jian's shoulders clench. Put in the same awkward situation, they acted in the same way. Yang Jian peered to her solemnly. The look he gave her was not one that should have made her feel guilty, guilty.

"You didn't let hm know."

Sanseng Mu unclenched her fists. "He doesn't need to know."

"Doesn't need to know? It's who he is, Three."

"He's my son, Second Brother. I'm raising him on my terms. Not yours."

"The same terms that kept us in the dark until it was too late? Until it led us to run with powers we couldn't control, Three?"

"Think about the reason why we had to run, _Two_ ," she said snidely. "Not knowing is a mercy."

"Need to know what?!" Chen Xiang cried. Their attentions snapped back to him.

"Chen Xiang," Yang Jian said. He paused but Sanseng Mu didn't stop him. He continued. "Your mother can move like that because she is a goddess. The goddess of these very mountains, actually. The mountains of Hua. Their protector and guardian." And then. "…I have three eyes to see better."

Sanseng Mu wanted to laugh, to throw her hands up to her face and bellow. But there was a heavy, crushing feeling in her stomach, a sad sort of warning playing in her head. Something inside her began to _roar._

"Then…doesn't that mean that I'm."

"Yes." Yang Jian lifted himself up, filling spaces with his shadow. He suddenly towered over Chen Xiang. "You, too, are a god of the Celestial Realm, Chen Xiang."

Chen Xiang stopped, drinking in those words. It wasn't long before he was beaming at them.

"You deserve to be there, Chen Xiang, you—"

"Enough."

Sanseng Mu stepped casually between them. "That would be all, brother. You should sit down."

Yang Jian stayed still. Not a hair on his head or thread in his magicked-up clothes betrayed emotion. "This is a business trip, Three. I've come to speak to the both of you. Cheng Xiang is a god, he doesn't belong down here."

"Then what am I?"

She didn't want to lose her cool in front of Chen Xiang, but the way Yang Jian could say the ridiculous with nothing in his face was always something that infuriated her now. "This is my house. My family. We're home here." She could feel Chen Xiang suddenly tug on her clothes behind her, and then she worked to stand in front of him.

Yang Jian sighed shortly. "You've made your decision. I know that. I know I'm hopeless to try change your mind."

"Then you should know that I won't let you feed propaganda into my son."

Yang Jian's mouth twitched. "Three. It's not as if you don't understand the gravity of this situation. How…" Yang Jian's voice broke. "How could you be so  _stupid?"_

 _Stupid._  Sanseng Mu could handle being called most things. Ugly, in her childhood, was the prime suspect. It used to matter to her a lot whether she was beautiful or not, but it quickly stopped mattering when she'd grown up and beautiful was thrown at her like it was fire and she was supposed to be some moth. Of course there were the other ones, the ones that made her skin crawl: Dirty. Heathen. Halfbreed. Wench. Those hurt, but it didn't matter in the long run when twin halfbreed god and goddess became two of the most powerful celestials in Heaven.

_The Western Armada had revolted. In fact, only a faction under a wayward commissioner had, but that didn't matter. It would be treated as treason, and the entire armada held responsible. Yang Jian and Yang Chan stood on the deck of a sky-ship, armoured in a common soldier's armour, weapons drawn at their sides. There was mocking laughter behind as they looked upon their enemies hand in hand. They were laughing, and then they weren't._

But  _stupid._  She couldn't stand stupid. For every little thing she did was reduced, in Heaven's eyes, in every celestial's eyes, to stupid. Spending more time on earth was frowned upon. Building her cottage was delirious. Openly talking to humans was sacrilege. Healing their diseases was nothing short of excessive. But oh, her act of saving Liu Yianchang, her slow-falling in love, her leaving Heaven to be happy, her giving up divinity to be herself with her beloved, that was stupid, stupid,  _stupid._

Sanseng Mu raised her chin, loosened her hands and bit Yang Jian back where she knew it would hurt most.

"How could you be so  _heartless?"_

The air seemed static. Yang Jian took a step forward and—

"Brother-in-law."

—stopped.

The Sky Eye flickered once more to the side, his normal sight strained on Sanseng Mu.

"Liu Yianchang," he remarked. "How very pleased I am to meet you." His voice was completely levelled. He did not turn to regard him, just stared with his Sky Eye.

"And I, you."

Sanseng Mu did not release her sight from Yang Jian. Yianchang walked confidently in, picked up a toy off the floor, and then bobbed behind his wife. "Chen Xiang, you're a fast runner and I wish you'd give me some warning next time." He huffed exaggeratedly. "C'mon. Your Mum's got some beef with your Uncle. Let them sort it out."

Sanseng Mu's brow twitched. For a literary academic that was a choice way of putting it.

Chen Xiang frowned.

"I'll let you draw with my calligraphy brushes. The  _nice_  ones," he added.

Chen Xiang perked, immediately forgetting the raised voices. He couldn't be used to raised voices, but he forgot so simply. "Hm." Yianchang picked him up (with some trouble - not because he was weak but rather, Chen Xiang was not a normal kid) and carried him out. He skimmed eyes with Yang Jian, deliberately breaking his contest with Sanseng Mu. Sanseng Mu smirked.

"Now will you sit?" she said dryly.

Yang Jian nodded once. He took a seat again. "He looks like a cross between a mule and someone who digs graves for a living."

Sanseng Mu gasped indignantly. "How dare you! He's an excellent poet and writer. Highly educated. Intelligent." For someone with the amount of eyes her brother had, there really were no excuses to acknowledge that Yianchang was an absolute catch.

"So he's a book nerd."

"If you're here to insult my husband I find that to be an extremely strange business agenda."

"Three," he sighed. "You married… _that mortal—"_

"—That scholar." Sanseng Mu took one of the teacups after remembering they were there, and then downed a cold glass of tea.

After a pause, Yang Jian poured her another lukewarm cup. She tapped her finger on the table.

And she didn't settle down until she felt Yianchang's heartbeat dwindle back down to sixty beats per minute in another room. 

_Yianchang: tall and soft and beautiful in all the ways that mattered — a straightforward man that saw black and white and when she told him who she was, finally, he'd been preparing to cross heaven with his weak, motley self without skipping a beat._

_They met at two hundred feet in the air where Yianchang was falling to his quite unremarkable death. She didn't mean to keep meeting him: in a sunny teahouse talking about the latest published limerick, under the trees as he sang an old show song while she touched his hair, in one of his classes as they struggled not to snicker under their breaths, and suddenly Yianchang was twenty five and then twenty nine and ageing and — she asked him to ask her to marry him._

She'd been the happiest in her life, with Yianchang.

"Alright, Second Brother," Sanseng Mu said. "What does Heaven want?"

"Marrying a mortal is treason."

"I said. What do they want from me?"

"Your sentencing."

"My death."

"No!" Yang Jian put down his cup with force, this time. But not enough force to crack the cup. "…No. Listen to me, Three. I have an incredibly high position in the Heavenly Court right now. It's done. It's sealed."

He looked up, his eyes flickering in agitation. "We're going back to Heaven. You're going to confess your sins and ask for forgiveness. If you do that — if we go together and ask for forgiveness, they'll let you live."

Sensing Mu took his words as if he'd just asked her whether her gardenias would bloom this year or the next. She sat back in a way that said she was totally sure of herself and then some. "I asked for what _Heaven_ wanted from me. Not you. I don't think what  _you_ want is how it's going to go, brother." She simpered. "You want me to go back there and admit I'm wrong. Maybe get on my knees, and grovel and cry, renounce everything I am. Perhaps even renounce our parents, perhaps renounce the House of Yang on the side. Beg them for absolution, isn't that right?"

Yang Jian looked away sternly. "Please. Come back to Heaven with me. I can make a case for you. And Chen Xiang. If you come before the court there's a chance that—"

"So fuck Yianchang, I suppose."

Yang Jian darkened. "Listen to me!"

"Don't joke with me." Sanseng Mu shook her head slowly. She sounded as empty and still as her brother now. "I'll tell you what Heaven will do. Heaven will murder me. My husband. And then Chen Xiang. In that order. Don't pretend you don't know the Jade Emperor," she said soberly. "Look what he did to his own sister," she opted to say, because they didn't speak of their mother anymore, "You think the likes of  _me_ could be let go?"

For they were the blood of the Jade Emperor, his own niece and nephew. Yang Jian shook his head after her, distraught. "You have a chance."

"I don't want my chance to be given to me by the hand that denies me." Sanseng Mu's anger rattled the room, the _roaring_ threatening to overtake her. Her hair flickered in a buzz, like it was full of static, and the energy she rolled in the pits of her stomach got free. She didn't retract it.

Yang Jian's brows crinkled drastically, ageing him by a decade. "…I think of the last time we met all those years ago and how we left things. Then I think of how I tried to reach out but never did." Now Yang Jiang looked up, facing her starkly. "And now I remember perfectly why we stopped talking. You're a fool for choosing them," he said, bitter, and hurt, "You willingly blind yourself to reality, to the truth, how could I expect you to be anything other than selfish!"

"Selfish?!" Sanseng Mu chuckled humourlessly. "You — oh, Two," she said, "You still think I'm  _wrong?_ " Sanseng Mu said, not truly talking about the goddamned law, and suddenly causing the cups and glass and porcelain dolls on the shelf began to shatter around them at random, strewing sharp shards everywhere. "— That you're _—_ we're  _wrong?"_

 _"You were always wrong!"_  Yang Jian shouted, causing the ends of the floorboards to gnarl and curl backwards in a instance, unleveling the room.

Sanseng Mu shook her head. "What are we? Wolves dressed in black sheep?" It was a pin drop silence that followed. "Down here, Yang Jian, we're neither," Sanseng Mu said, terse. "Down here, we're human."

"But we are not human." 

In the esteemed, venerable Erlang Shen's head, there always one side that was going to be a little more right, and one side that was going to be a little more wrong. As soon as which side was which was labelled, there was no going back in his mind.

He closed his eyes. "To be proven otherwise is to rightfully accept it. To be proven otherwise and refuse to take your place in Heaven," Yang Jian said. He didn't finish his sentence.

Sanseng Mu huffed, taking the chance to look out her window. It hadn't started to rain yet, but she thought there was a burgeoning hope for it. She didn't want to hear anymore from him. She didn't care for it.

Yang Jian looked down. "You know why I'm here, Three. You also know why I came by myself."

"I'm not stupid," Sanseng Mu said. "The second Chen Xiang came back for me I knew it was over. They had only little chance of getting out by the longboat, anyway. It was a stretch. It supposed to be so Chen Xiang wouldn't have to see violence."

Yang Jian swallowed. He gave her a particularly rueful look. It reminded her of the day when they'd finally stopped running together. That short moment where they'd both realised, exhausted to the point of huffing and throwing up, that there was nothing else. That they only had each other.

_"Look at the sky," he'd said, "the sky…" At first Sanseng Mu thought it was the smoke. The blazing trail of their wealthy estate, the House of Yang burning with everyone still inside. They were far away enough that the line of smoke looked about the same size as her pinky finger. But Yang Jian wasn't talking about the smoke, he was talking about the clouds._

_Rumbling and toiling like there was something brutish trapped inside; twisting, primal and hungry; flashes of white light blaring without the rain. The gods were angry. Yang Jian was crying, his hands shaking as he clutched her, grieving. She was crying too, but little, stupid Yang Chan, she was not grieving. She was angry._

They were close once. Close in that way where they both knew why Heaven had sent their Upholder of Law, Erlang Shen, to take down his sister. It was a last test, of sorts. To be totally loyal to Heaven's rule, jump the last, spiked hurdle. And for Sanseng Mu, who would not be able to fight her own dear brother. For her, they sent a targeted weakness. They used to be close like that.

Yang Jian closed his eyes hard before opening them sharply. "There are fifty thousand soldiers above us. The Mei Shan brothers are here. A few first rank warriors. Li Jin. _"_

"Is Xiao Tian Quan up there?" Sanseng Mu asked, quirking her brows.

"…Yes, he is."

"Goodness," Sanseng Mu moved to touch her chin. "Then this will be some work."

Yang Jian shifted uncomfortably. There was nothing more to say. The business should be concluded soon. They had kept the fifty thousand heavenly soldiers waiting far longer than they should have. It would have been an abuse of power had Yang Jian not had such a title of prestige — none of them would talk back to him. None of them had the gall to.

She didn't know what was about to happen to her — whether she had the ability to hold fifty thousand soldiers back the way she was now. Whether she could look someone like Li Jin and the Mei Shan brothers in the eye, old friends once upon a time. Whether she would be enough as a distraction to allow Yianchang and Chen Xiang to escape. Whether Yang Jian would earn a bad name over this little escapade. But one thing was for sure: Sanseng Mu knew she didn't blame her Second Brother for having to do this. Perhaps she tried to, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. Sanseng Mu waited for Yang Jian to give the order.

"…I'm here to take you in, Three."

"I know, Second Brother."

Yang Jian drooped. He haunched over completely, leaning listlessly into his hand and covering his forehead completely. It was as if, all of a sudden, he could finally show just how  _tired_  he was. His breaths heaved slowly, painfully so.

_They had shared the same master. When they left him, Yang Jian had been better than Sanseng Mu at brute force, but she was better than him at speed. His magic was mainly composed of transformations and stamina that went on forever. But Sanseng Mu's magic was fluid and electric and razor-edged. They used to be evenly matched. They used to be able to hold their own against anyone together. It was how the sheep survived the hunters — by becoming hunters themselves._

Yang Jian stood up. With a simple flick of his wrist, his clothes began to fall away like a dessert mirage in a far distance, plates of metal surfacing like how dragons flared their scales. Armoured in silver and black, he reached into thin air, clutching snugly around his favourite weapon by the time he'd fully extended his arm. The shining, three-pointed spear with edges of sabres and steel totally attuned to Yang Jian's aura. Powerful enough to penetrate and cleave through metal and stone like it was made of wool.

For the time being, Yang Jian closed his Sky Eye. "You decided how this ends, Three. You did."

"Yes. Yes she does," came Liu Yianchang from the kitchen.

The look on Yang Jian's face was one that looked as if he was feeling distinctly interrupted. He turned to see him. Yianchang strut into the room with unwavering confidence and resolve. In his hand was the black and red sheath of a Chinese longsword, a red sash tied around the hilt. The notable thing was how thin it was, the width of it the size of two fingers closed together, and long enough that Yianchang had to bend his arms to stop it dragging on the floor.

Looking from Yianchang's deadpan face to Sanseng Mu, Yang Jian narrowed his eyes, sighed lightly, and then cocked his head to the side. "Truly. You're really going to test your sword against my spear? " he said, stepping forth, his eyes flickering with a backlight. "Very well. Then come, Liu Yianchang. Fight me."

With a flash of confusion over his face, Yianchang scoffed at him when he settled.

"You cur," Yianchang said. "I thought you were aware. I'm a literary man. I'm an accomplished poet and scholar. Don't fret against me, I've simply come to equip my wife with her sword."

At that, Yianchang switched the sword between his left hand to his right and then haphazardly tossed it to his wife. Sanseng Mu caught it between three fingers.

"Please don't do this. You can still come quietly." Yang Jian's bottom lip seemed to quiver with anger. "What can you possibly hope to achieve?"

Liu Yianchang faced down Yang Jian with a glare.

"Fratricide, if we're lucky," he said with complete neutrality.

Sanseng Mu watched Yang Jian look from her to Yianchang, from Yianchang to her. And, as if to back Yianchang's point — because now it was between everything she held dear and true and everything that made her fallout with Yang Jian so unbearably hesitant and quiet — to back her world, she unsheathed her longsword.

Yang Jian watched as she drew it out, watching the straight tip of the blade expectantly as it buzzed and reshaped, curling itself into a hook. Both edges sharpened, the inward curl shortening the sword into the standard size. Sanseng Mu had a flair to her that Yang Jian had done away with sometime, when she knew that he thought flair was for show, and he had nothing else to prove in this already decided world. But Sanseng Mu did not let the world decide, and she had something to prove.

They'd watched street performers as young disciples in training, and Yang Jian used to turn his head each second for thirty seconds, each with a new transformed face. How their master had admonished them for sneaking showmanship combat into real, lethal martial arts. Sanseng Mu still hadn't forgotten how to do daylight tricks. Clutching her sword with both hands, she jolted it once, a jerky movement that made the guarding crescent blades at the hilt of the sword appear out of nothing. Then she positioned the blade before her face so that the hook disappeared from Yang Jiang's view, sharp side facing them both. With another deft jolt, she separated her hands and revealed the two flat sides of the duplicated swords, hooks linked together.

_She remembered when she picked those things off a dusty domestic shelf and their Master nodding his head agreeably, "Nice eye, Yang Chan." He flicked two fingers on the metal, nodding again at the high, reverberating 'ting.' "Sounds nice too." They were duo hook-swords, designed for mid-to-close combat whereas Yang Jian's spear was mid-to-distant. And they'd chosen them to compliment each other — depending on what it was, Sanseng Mu was to redirect and use precision shots to decapacitate, and Yang Jian would come in to deal hard damage and overwhelm. Then they'd switch mid-motion, without warning. The way they alternated between support and first-line was impeccable — until they'd both grown so deadly the scheme suddenly and famously stopped working._

Was she still as lethal as she was in her prime? When was the last time she fought for real, without inhibitions? Could she still hold her own again Yang Jian, who now lived and breathed to fight the vast array of Heaven's enemies? He was the Upholder of Heavenly Law, had being since the high Tang dynasty when he cleaned up the Havoc in Heaven. She was a rural mountain guide. 

Sanseng Mu turned up one sword at Yang Jian. 

There was a soft curl of lip, not a smile. "Three. This," he blinked at what this was, a warning? A delusion? "This is unofficial. The moment I return to my post, the siege begins."

She felt Yianchang's heartbeat climb again, right beside her. Sanseng Mu nodded, putting down her sword. "Go."

 _"Yang Chan?"_ Yianchang murmured, unsure.

Sanseng Mu tipped her head towards the door. "Get out. Go to your faithful battalion,  _Erlang Shen_ , and then come at me with everything you and your Heaven have got."

Yang Jian did not react. He closed his eyes, slid his hand down his spear slightly, and then obliged. Yang Jian turned staunchly to head to the door, using tunnel vision doing something as minimal as that. His black boots clacked against the floorboards.

Then he turned around, taking another glance at her, and Sanseng Mu's hands clenched around her weapons. Yang Jian said nothing more. It was uncanny, in that instance, Sanseng Mu thought — that he'd been  _Two,_  he came here as her  _Two,_  he was Yang Jian even in that shiny armour and rank-showing hairpin with that familiar spear. He'd come as a brother first and executioner second.

Yang Jian turned around to say goodbye and he was not who he wanted to be. Yang Jian brushed his forehead with the back of two fingers, tipping his head slightly. Then he reared up and straightened. And Just like that, he was Erlang Shen.

 

* * *

 

Yianchang shot forward, shakily boarding the door up with a large plank of wood before sinking his back into it. He let out a long sigh. "Alright. Alright, c'mon, we have to go—"

"Yianchang."

"Or what can I do? Let me do something—"

Sanseng Mu dropped her swords — they remained in mid-air as she went forward to hold Yianchang's face and Yianchang reacted by buckling, holding hers. "Yianchang — it's alright. It's alright," she smiled. "We knew this was coming."

 _"We did."_  Yianchang's hands slid back to hers on his face and he put their foreheads together. "I'll see you in the next life."

Sanseng Mu hesitated. "I'll look for you."

She didn't want to give him false hope because false hope was cruel, but still, she vowed right then and there that at the very least, Yianchang would live. She would make it so. If she made it out alive, her crimes were such that the right kind of people would make sure she would never reincarnate again. But she would make it out alive. She was determined.

"Your chest is glowing," Yianchang said, sniffling back a silly laugh. 

"Oh." Sanseng Mu bought her hand before her, concentrated her magic, and reached inside her ribcage. It was where she hid the Lantern - no one was able to get at it unless it was over her dead body, quite literally. The Lotus Lantern pulsed alive, bathing them both in light. She willed it to go dark, but found she couldn't for the time being. 

Maybe it was so that Yang Jian and Yang Chan thought they would always have each other, if the world spontaneously combusted and the Heavens fell out of the sky. But right now they were here: he was Erlang Shen, and Chen Xiang and Yianchang needed her to be Sanseng Mu. Because to be Sanseng Mu was to reserve a right to choose. It was what she wanted, and of course, it was what she needed too. 

_(She was much like their mother after all. Some people fought by giving up everything and cramming their immortal aura into the heart of an heirloom jade lantern. Some people ripped off their billowing long sleeves and summoned their hook swords to pick a fight. Today, her little house would be where the little line of smoke rose, she was the one living out a fate that had been laid out for her after all. By now it had finally caught up to her, a deep, yawing chasm that roared and roared. The roaring had never left her; Sanseng Mu felt it still her chest, her head, everything, everything roaring.)_

The Lantern glowed.

"I love you," Sanseng Mu said.

"Yeah," Yianchang chuckled. "And I, you."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The sanseng mu in that animated lotus lantern movie was p awesome like she was ready to shine that magical flashlight in erlang shen's face what an icon.
> 
> I'm not a very great artist but hey I have pencil drawings of erlang shen and sanseng mu and stuff so I will add them once I figure out how to. They aren't twins in canon but I think having them be twins here is appropriate - two very similar people who came to lead drastically different lives. It feels like such a tragedy, how they love each other but end up on opposite sides. 
> 
> This can be read as either a standalone one shot or extra to my Journey to the west fic.
> 
> Thank you for reading.


	2. A day in the life of

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Ghosts can’t drink,” Yang Jian stated. “What are they supposed to drink? Ghost-alcohol? Alcohol can't die,” he said importantly. 
> 
> The Yangs are twins, but Yang Jian is older by like thirty minutes, and they have trouble not sassing each other at every opportunity. Their master looks on in dismay, but only pretends to be dismayed for the sake of being The Teacher In Charge, that's what those are supposed to do. 
> 
> A quick moment that shows what the Yangs' conversations were like 80% of the time in their apprenticeship days.

"It looks like you're trying to fight an imaginary ghost, except its attached itself to your head and you're trying to aim while half-possessed." Three leaned on Yang Jian's windowsill, turning up her nose at his every attempt to insert his pin in the smaller-than-a-keyhole slot in his headpiece. "Also, the ghost is drunk."

“Ghosts can’t drink,” Yang Jian stated. “What are they supposed to drink? Ghost-alcohol? Alcohol can't die,” he said importantly. He took a moment to himself so as to calculate the logistics of it.“You can’t rule a drink as deceased.”

"What if the ghost died intoxicated?"

"I think you're intoxicated."

"What if—"

"If you have time to write a stage play, you have time to go check if Longneck Meng has cursed your equipment," Yang Jian said without looking. "Again."

"I could," Three agreed, "but this is far more entertaining."

"If you lose out there I will not forgive you," Yang Jian said with the pin gnashed between his teeth.

"No." Three leaned in closer. "But you'll avenge me." She leaned in so far that her feet had undoubtedly left the ground, leaving her dangling on her stomach halfway through the window frame. Three shuffled in to leech off Yang Jian's mirror. "Little left…little right…never mind. You missed again."

"You know if I so much as sit at that long-necked, half-wit's breakfast table, Master will not hesitate to ban Xiao Tian Quan. The risk outweighs the merits." Yang Jian clenched his fists and started over. His hair fell from his grip, falling down his face again. He started collecting it back into a pony-tail.

"Not my fault you almost killed him behind the stables after lights out." She scoffed. "What on earth got into you, anyway? You never told me. You missed a piece."

Yang Jian frowned. Tuning his head to the right, he picked up the strands of hair he left out from the back. "You never asked."

"I did."

"No, you didn't."

"I did."

"No, you didn't."

"I — _Tian-ah!_  You have three eyes, Two, use them!"

Yang Jian sighed a lengthy sigh. "…In my defence. This is a new hairpiece."

"You can shoot a bullseye on three separate targets in a single move yet you can't slot a pin through a hole?"

"In my defence, this particular hairpiece was a mistake. Now are you satisfied? If you'll just let me—"

"You're good at everything, Two, you're good at everything on your first go."

"That's just irrational. If you'll just—"

"Why did you almost kill him?"

 _"—_ Get out of my mirror — _I didn't almost kill him, he was acting 'tough' in front of the other two nitwit friends of his before exaggerating his predicament in front of Master_ — you're using up my mirror space."

"I'm in the background, you're in the foreground, how much space do you need?" Three almost fell through his window. A quick and wild wave of her hands saved her. She slunk back through it and opted instead to sit on the frame, back towards Yang Jian. 

Yang Jian continued to do his hair as if nothing had happened.

"I'll take your shift to the well if you tell me," Three said.

Yang Jian smiled into the mirror without moving a muscle anywhere else. "Fine. I broke his nose. I guess that counts as attempted murder, according to you. My run for the well is today at four."

Three scoffed, shaking her head until her hair was static. "No — no, no, no, I asked you _why_ not how!"

"I despise Meng."

"Our master made it pretty clear you're not allowed to use the 'd' word."

"I don't appreciate Meng's existing on this planet."

"I despise Meng and his ugly, long neck too — you don't see me going around knocking people's noses off their face, Two!"

Three disappeared from the window with a cool blast of air. There were a few quiet seconds for the shame of Yang Jian having to let down his hair and start over for the third time, without letting Three know. Yang Jian's door began to rattle at his side, Three wanting to be let in far too soon. He did nothing. He worked on his hair faster. A jolt of air blew loose strands over his face again as Three reappeared at the open window.

Yang Jian briefly sighed in relief that she didn't break into his room. 

Leaning back through the window, Three whispered with a dark lilt to her voice. "Fine, don't let me in. I'll just paint an eye on my forehead and pretend to be you when I lose."

Yang Jian sighed again. "Fine. I'm scared of you." He closed his eyes. "Agree you won't do anything rash."

"Me," Three said innocently, "Rash?"

"You," Yang Jian said, monotonously, _"Rash."_

Three leaned back onto the frame, seemingly thinking on it. "Fine."

Then, finally jumping into the room via the window, Three walked up to Yang Jian and batted the clip he was currently trying to use to hold his hair somewhat in place out of his hand. Shaking his hair out again, she took a comb and began brushing it out. "Tell me."

Yang Jian held out the hairpiece for her. "Don't tell Master."

"Go on."

"I went to the stables past lights-out time to let Xiao Tian into my room."

Yang Jian felt Three's demeanour go rigid for a moment before she rolled her eyes. "You risked getting caught for — _of course you would."_

"Do want to hear this or not?" Yang Jian snapped at her in a way that was light and smooth, like he was dangling the story in front of her. 

"Keep talking."

"Longneck and his degenerates were there too. Probably trying to go past the stables and magic the weapons into malfunctioning. To give themselves an edge during training the next day. Today. They saw me."

"So you punched his nose off his face," Three began saying, satisfied with his tangle-free hair, "To bury your secrets in the barn. And hole Xiao Tian Quan up in your room."

"His nose, unfortunately, is still exactly where it was before I realigned his attitude." Yang Jian didn't flinch as Three pulled a little too hard in one direction, though not on purpose.

Three seemed to stop the moment she thought his hair wouldn't fall apart. "Is that really why you fought him?" She sounded a little dazed, like she couldn't believe Yang Jian could forfeit control like that.

"He…" Yang Jian looked at her in the mirror.

When they were still children, and despite being fraternal twins, they'd looked exactly the same. Especially when Three made an effort to cover her forehead with a cap as well. Looking in the mirror now, it wasn't hard to see the resemblance. The same sharp chin, the same hard jaw and almost identical nose, only that time meant Yang Jian's were more pronounced than hers now. Yang Jian watched his jaw go taut in the mirror, and Three's soften as she made a face. Yang Jian's lips turned just slightly down.

"He thought I was you."

Only one of Three's brow lifted. The other was kept unnervingly still.

"It was dark. He thought I was you. He started hitting on me. You."

Three nearly pulled a large tuft of hair out of Yang Jian's skull. "He — _what?!"_

"So I clarified. I am Yang Jian. Not Yang Chan. And he must have been idiotic as well as _stupid._ Because he insisted I was lying. So after I proved my masculinity by putting my long, flowing hair up, thus showing my forehead, he jumped back like a startled barn rat and started shouting obscenities," Yang Jian said in one dragging, toneless breath. _"Like one does,"_ he added in the same level voice.

Three tried to contain herself and accidentally stabbed her finger with Yang Jian's new pin. She quickly shifted away to stop herself from dripping blood on his perfectly done hair. While she wiped the pin with her clothes, she ambled back behind Yang Jian's seat, just able to face Yang Jian's reflection without laughing again. "And…and then?"

"And then. Once he was done saying obtuse things about my lunch eating habits. And physical exterior. Making absolute sure that I knew how unsightly I looked. In his next logical sequence. He began gushing about you."

"M-me?" Three said weakly, sucking blood from her left index.

"Yes. Trying to rile me. By using you."

 _"Ah-huh,"_ Three nodded at the mirror, lips wobbling from trying to keep from snorting.

"So I replied," Yang Jian said, taking a long, charged pause. "We look the same. Meng. She looks like me. I look like her. You spent the last six and a half minutes agonisingly describing my quite gratuitous hideousness. Then you proceeded to make clear that you voluminously fancied my sister. Meng," Yang Jian said, tired, almost.

"We have the same face."

At that, Three started laughing her guts out, leaning limply over the seat. Her own pin poked Yang Jian in his face — he tried to lean away from her as she draped lifelessly over him.

"Are you going to stand there. Or are you going to put the pin through my hair already."

Three gathered herself up and easily slid in the pin. Yang Jian failed to hide his own surprise at the ease in which she'd done it. Three hit him lightly in the shoulder.

"So why did you hit him? He's so—" Three burst out laughing again. _"He's just so…so pathetic why'd you have to hit him?"_

"He had the chance to say one more thing. A chance I regret giving him."

Three shook her head and blanked her face into a low smirk. Yang Jian's face was impassive.

"He insulted your blood. Without meaning to insult mine. Like there's a difference."

Three's smirk wiped off her face.

"So I hit him."

Three swallowed. Yang Jian tilted left and right, satisfied with the hold of the hairpiece.

"When you go out there and fight today's match, don't kill Longneck. It's not worth it."

Three swallowed harder, rolling her neck. "Hm."

Yang Jian put on his boots and unlocked the door to leave. "Good luck."

"Don't need it," Three said to the mirror.

"Regardless."

Yang Jian went to check Three's equipment was clean of any unwanted magic.

 

* * *

 

During the training matches, Yang Jian sat near the back of the stands, arms crossed. Three found him and nudged him three minutes into the first match. She did it often enough for Yang Jian to know to spill.

"It's Longneck." Yang Jian's lips twisted.

"And?"

"He's sitting in the first row."

"Uhuh."

"He's wearing my hairpiece," Yang Jian said.

Three sat back, putting her legs up to kick the seat in front of her before putting it quickly down again. "I'll get it back."

"No need." Yang Jian's expression soured. "It's tainted now."

"Yeah, but you know he doesn't deserve that pin." Parts of Three's hair began to pop out of shape, like static. "It's your favourite pin, I'm getting it back and washing it like I'm about to make him wash his mouth—"

Yang Jian nudged Three hard in the shoulder. "Master."

"He doesn't need to know," Three reacted, but Yang Jian's single word was not a warning but a greeting.

Patriarch Yuding Zhenren sat next to Yang Jian, wedging him in between Three and his master. Yang Jian and Three got up, bowing low.

"Master," Three greeted belatedly, looking like her soul was leaving her body. "I was just saying you did not need to know Two had misgivings about the pottery-making class you decided to start next week." 

Yang Jiang twisted his head around, _"That's a lie!"_

"Be seated," Yuding Zhenren gestured beside him. After a rest, he grimaced. "Of course that's a lie. Pottery-making class starts _today._ You will not believe the dream I had last night - it was a sure sign the universe would not be in place for a mere man like  _me_ to attempt to teach the intricacies of ceramic creations upon such an inauspicious date. I meant it when I said sit down, Jian'er." 

Yang Jian, feeling suddenly uncomfortably big, nodded stiffly and sandwiched himself between Yuding Zhenren and Three again. He tried his best not to lock eyes with Three, trying to ignore the look she was trying to give him. 

"Anyway, the premonition betrays the truth. Pottery class next week? Disaster. Travesty. Abomination. Do I want all my disciples to crash and burn like the tenth sun? _If I did, Yang Chan, I assure you I would begin pottery classes next week."_

"...I understand, Master," Three replied, unconvincingly, as the tenth sun currently shone down on them as they spoke. 

Yuding Zhenren changed the subject with no followup. 

"Yang Jian," their master said, his voice low and rolling always like he smoked six pipes a day. Which he probably did. "You've always been a humble and reasonable person. You're one of my most trustable disciples."

Yang Jian got the particular feeling that _he_ would have to lie the master to his face. He felt immediately sorry. But lying this time wouldn't matter much. Not when he and Three had made their entry vows on a lie.

(How Longneck had come to know of who they were was a mystery. Perhaps he didn't know at all, and Yang Jian had acted chaotically. A mistake. Everybody who'd been inside the House of Yang had perished in the fire, or surely been silenced afterwards if that was not enough. The entourage that had smoked their house thought they had killed everyone. They were wrong. As Yang Jian and Yang Chan kowtowed to Yuding Zhenren to become his disciples, they knew to live was to lie.)

"Won't you tell me," the Zhenren said, the faint smell of smoke still lingering on his clothes, "Why you nearly obliterated your disciple-brother Meng Yu's head?"

"It was not my intention, Master."

"Please keep to the point, Yang Jian. Regardless of your intention to the finished wound, you intended the act of hitting your fellow disciple-brother. Why is that?"

"Master," Three started, reaching awkwardly over Yang Jian to salute, "It's this disciple's fault. I dared him to go outside. Two's pride simply couldn't refuse."

"Two's pride is not so woefully connected to such low activities, Chan'er," Yuding Zhenren said patiently, waving Three off. "Unless you dared him to put more care into the dog than he does valuing his allergic roommate's lungs, and punching Meng Yu, whom you clearly knew was going to be loitering around the stables in the night. Did you?"

Three skimmed eyes with Yang Jian's. She backed off, looking like she was wildly thinking of some way to get him out of this. Yang Jian appreciated it. 

"Jian'er?" their Master repeated.

Yang Jian blinked. "I did it because." Yang Jian rattled his brain to say something appropriate. "Because he insisted—"

Drumbeat thundered uproariously as one of the senior disciples announced the next match. Yang Chan squeezed Yang Jian's wrist before getting up and bowing to take her leave.

"Master, I need Two to help me warm up for my match." 

Yuding Zhenren narrowed his eyes. "Go watch Chan'ers match," he said. "Well, I don't know what got into you, Jian'er. But if my most trustworthy and honest student, who is more strict with himself than his master is, says so…" Yuding Zhenren rose, popped his pipe back into his mouth, and sighed in a way that sounded suspiciously more like amusement than disappointment.. "Whatever it was, I'm sure he deserved it."

Three shared a look with Two's third eye. Just the third eye.

"But don't tell him I said that. That wouldn't be good."

Three saluted and bowed again. Two hurriedly got up to mirror her.

"Well. I will see you both in pottery class. Tonight," Yuding Zhenren said, lighting his pipe with a pinky finger.

Yang Jian and Yang Chan's eyes met once again. "We...we're not sure we can make it because of our. Schedules. Master," Yang Jian said calmly.

"Nonsense. _You make it._ " Yuding Zhenren waved. "Cheerio."

They both watched his back as he left. In the very least, the Longneck hadn't told him what had happened either. Yuding Zhenren didn't know what his twin disciples were. They were safe. 

"…He forbid me from saying the d word, but lets you punch a man until he blacks-out?!" Three said loudly, enough to turn heads. All of a sudden she switched from defending Yang Jian with her life to blaming him.

"Don't you just despise it, Three?" Yang Jian smirked, and narrowed his three eyes one before the other in slow, practiced procession.

"Teacher's pet," Three accused as her name was called yet again.

"Don't forget my pin."

"Oh, I'll get your precious pin for you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was about to go in deleted scenes before I decided "You can't rule a drink as deceased" Yang Jian and "I’ll paint an eye on my forehead and pretend to be you when I lose" Yang Chan was too good so I had to post. 
> 
> I just couldn't find a spot for it in the later chapters. This fic is probably going to be closer to a collection of one shots than anything, since I found it hard to keep things linear. It jumps all about. 
> 
> On the twins:  
> Yang Jian and Yang Chan are described to look very similar despite being male and female fraternal twins. They can't be identical (twins that are split from the same zygote), because then it's impossible to have different genders. Fraternal twins don't necessarily look the same - but here I just write them as being super similar-looking anyway. I imagine when they were even younger, they looked nearly identical. As they grew up, it got much easier to tell them apart of course. 
> 
> Yang Jian and Yang Chan are ride or die. At the same time, they can't wait to push the other under a bus themselves. 
> 
> On names:  
> Adding "er" (something like son/daughter/child/offspring) onto the end of someone's first/personal name used to be how people called their loved ones and people they were close to. Sort of like a nickname. It would be used on children, or between lovers, etc. For example, if someone was called 'Samantha,' their friends and family might call them 'Sammy." In old age China there was one way to do this, and it was add "er" to everything. (Today, instead it's just people's name doubled up. Your name happens to be is Yang Jian? Everyone calls you Jianjian. Yang Chan? Chanchan.) 
> 
> On Yuding Zhenren／ 玉鼎真人  
> Probably not going to do a lot more with this character so I'll talk about him heaps here. The one good thing about the Lotus Lantern Prelude is Yang Jian's master (that I also made Yang Chan's in this version), who was an absolute loony nut who smoked all day and had messy hair and was super weak despite being able to expertly train this strong ass demigod teen. I remember watching this and being baffled this borderline hobo man was Uptight Army-Man-esque Yang Jian's master. He wasn't even, like, that old. He had a full head of black hair and was barely middle-aged. I now think it's a brilliant idea - maybe he's the reason Yang Chan and Yang Jian are this perfectionist. They had a relatively young-looking master who was zany and oddball - they turn out the complete opposite. 
> 
> Yuding Zhenren is such a slob and can hardly use any of the high level magic he teaches, yet he teaches it to them flawlessly. The twins surpass Yuding Zhenren cos he's such a great master, but their respect for him is through the roof cos he's just...that good. That competent. In this version I also made Yuding Zhenren a clairvoyant. He can see the future, but only glimpses. Most of the time it's stuff like, ah, I will buy a flower keychain one day. But that day is 230,000 years in the future. The pottery class he'll teach? It's not really about making pots, it's about some x important magic theory that he discovered while making pots, and he will pass it down because sometime a hundred years from now at least one of his disciples will stop some huge crisis with it. Being Yuding Zhenren is so stressful he has to be genuinely chill about everything or he'll go actually crazy. 
> 
> (I can't wait to make the gag where Yuding Zhenren turns out accomplished, cop-like Yang Jian and Yang Chan, meanwhile Sun Wukong's Master Puti is just as you expect being the strict and ruthless drill sergeant- but he turns out party-crashing, booze-chugging Wukong.)


	3. They said living well was the best revenge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Be soft, be lithe, pliant, and above all, be a lady.
> 
> All her life she'd liked to be a nurturer. All her life, she revelled in 'otherwises' to that.
> 
> To be a healer, to patch up fresh wounds. It wasn't long after before she dealt them just as well.

Yang Chan, young, bright, considerably highborn — if nothing had so much as tugged at her heartstrings in the wrong way — would have quite agreeably been just that. She didn't mind it at all — what of those long flowing dresses that suited her fine, of smelling like newly bloomed magnolias and painting her lips vermillion, or dancing, and singing, and being beautiful. Yang Chan liked playing with dolls and studying poetry and even tried her hand at embroidery when she got to the age. The life of being a lady would have fitted her fine.

Everything else she did, she did because someone needed to.

"Yeah?" she said, her voice sandpaper against stone. "Say it. Tell me again," Yang Chan proposed, standing over three fallen figures, a fistful of shirt collar under her chin.

"Three, you're wasting your time." Two sighed, turning back.

"How I waste my time is up to me," Yang Chan said merrily over her business, inviting Two to chat in the middle of her beating up some trouble starters.

Though Two never started up trouble, he was ever excellent at finishing it. He walked over to where Yang Chan listlessly dropped the first guy like a sack of potatoes.

"Listen," he said, resolute. "My name is Yang Jian, the best three-eyed freak in this village. You needn't tell me your names."

He marched off back to their magistrate estate with her, side-by-side.

As children, it was easy to confuse her with her brother, with the same flyaway hair that refused to stay tucked down or still at all, the same curve of a snide brow, the same little _tch_  at the people that ogled them like goods behind glass, the same unearthly rage that made things shake, _subtle, but undoubtedly there._

The day they shepherded Two away to sit at the back of the rich kids class, she imagined him sitting there still and silent, blinking periodically as he listened to but didn't answer questions unless specifically asked. It was just like him. At night, Two signalled Yang Chan to the rooftops and they took to the stars, lying down on the cold hard bricks as they quietly discussed the last hours they were not together. They sometimes played switcheroo — Yang Chan with a black cap on her head to cover her quite large forehead as she sat in the back of class — just to see if anyone would notice. People hardly did. They got to giggle about it in the early hours of the morning when no one else was listening.

So when peopled cried _freak,_ she felt her spine tingle and her heart twinge, all in the wrong ways. She took it as if it were directed at her as well. It was not ladylike to learn how to bite, but she had to learn for the both of them—

Two might not care, but not caring didn't mean not being worser for it anyway. Where nothing got to Two, everything got to Three.

"Stop following me," Yang Chan warned an annoying kid. She gave one, clear warning before she balled up her fist.

"But I really—"

 _Really what?_ Yang Chan thought sarcastically, as she watched the kid gasp and curl over frontwards. Two'd struck the annoying kid behind the head, lips tightening as he took the place where he once stood.

"He really deserved that," Two offered politely in a way that was still matter of fact. "Let's go."

What she desired was playing in nice gardens and learning to bandage up a finger when she pricked it trying to sew, the life all laid out for her, expected of nice ladies. If nothing had screamed _wrong_ in her ear when she saw wrongs, said _otherwise_ in her mind's eye as she considered her options, she wouldn't have needed to step into another pair of her own shoes to dole out what should be. She lived a charmed life up until fifteen.

Then an arrow zipped through their tiled roof, right into her father's neck, in front of her.

 

* * *

(Suddenly she felt so useless when none of her finger-bandaging skills and broken-leg bandaging skills could come to use.)

* * *

 

"Take this." Her tears blurred her vision as Mother pressed the Lantern into her brother's hand, and then the jade pendant into hers. They were old family heirlooms. The pendant, heavy on her neck, was the same pendant Grandma had let her wear once to feel big and important.

She held the pendant tight.

"Yang Jian — Yang Chan—" Their mother squeezed Two and Three so tight it was hard to breathe. And then softer, in their ears, _"The Lantern will keep you safe. Keep it on you, so long as you keep it close, the Lantern will keep you safe."_

In the woods behind their estate they ran hand in hand, hand in hand into a kind of wilderness that they did not really escape, _not ever._ The wildness of a dog-eat-dog world, where they were hunted by their own kind (half of their kind? Or maybe not really at all?), where they were fifteen years old and an uncanny valley of their own type.

"There, over there!"

Soldiers nipped at their heels. They were catching up, eight men dressed in clean, varnished metal and leather. The insignia of Heaven shining bright, pressed below their breastplates. Two and Three were surrounded. She felt a rumble vibrate against her leg, shaking her — Xiao Tian Quan growing, putting his long body between them. This time, it was her turn to freeze up. Her turn to stare wide eyed as the little line of smoke kept rising in the distance, and the soldiers closed in.

The rest happened too fast. Xiao Tian lunging, and Two moving at the same time, pushing the dog out of the way to stop him from getting killed. Yang Jian pushing the Lantern between them, shouting something like _stay away!_ Someone running forward and locking her arms behind her back. Xiao Tian getting up and getting immediately shot in the shoulder with an arrow.

Yang Chan was too dazed as she watched the rest of the soldiers run to apprehend Yang Jian, pushing him down, one by one. By then, he'd stopped shouting. It was a silent, scruffy struggle. Yang Jian with his grit teeth and dishevelled hair, holding onto the Lantern for dear life. The silence of it was unnerving. It was then, watching Yang Jian struggle as some soldier pummelled into his back, the others easing off as if they'd won already, that sparked her back to life.

_"Two!"_

In a short, stark moment, all that mattered in the world was that they got their murderous celestial hands off her fucking three-eyed brother. Their attention spun to Yang Chan as she writhed out of the soldier's hold. Yang Jian struggled out of his captor's hands as she ran to him, towards the horde of people.

Nothing drove a person more than what needed to be done, and nothing surmounted that if they had the gall to do it. Yang Chan, wanting to be soft, lithe, and ladylike, needed none of those things anymore.

Yang Jian pressed the Lantern into her hand and Yang Chan took hold of it. She lifted it into air, and thought about need. Thought about getting out of here and surviving. Thought about the damned, stupid dog who tried to run and bite eight people at once. Thought about Yang Jian, and how no one had the right to call him a freak, how they shouldn't have put their dirty, muddy fingers on him.

The Lantern went ablaze.

 

* * *

 

It felt like fire (but it didn't burn her).

It felt like fire igniting power, power she already had, or she would eventually have.

 

* * *

 

"Three?!"

Yang Jian ran to her. "Three! It's al— they're gone, they're gone, you're alri—"

"I killed them."

Yang Jian threw his arms over her. She was shaking now, but he was as well. It made her feel just a bit less pathetic. "You did. But I tried to as well."

She thought about what she wanted: wearing huge hair ornaments, dancing, being a Lady, living and laughing with the extended family under the same roof they'd been living under for generations — being exactly like their mother. The part of her that had never had to raise a hand to do something laborious herself.

She thought about what she needed: to be the one to shepherd a paralysed Two away from the burning, to swing a fist in the right direction, to start thinking about that thing called revenge, and none of the part of their mother that had given them the Lantern and let herself be destroyed. Her wants and needs did not align and perhaps never would.

Everything that she did now was because she needed to.

"Let's go."

"Yeah."

"Carry Xiao Tian Quan."

 

* * *

 

There was a roaring in her ears as she ran through the wilds that day. In that crystalline moment, barefoot through the undergrowth, it was the wind. The wind cutting past her cheeks, deafening her along with the sounds of her breathing. The wind stinging her eyes and hitting her with almost tangible force. As if, right then, it was chasing her too.

That roaring followed her.

Young Yang Chan and Yang Jian bowed into the tutelage of celestial eccentric, Yuding Zhenren. They lied about who they were, poor orphans needed to be kept secret from a house feud that Yang Chan had made up, with a recommendation letter Yang Jian had penned in his best handwriting. It was there that they learnt their craft. Hidden in plain sight, they began to train.

Sneaking themselves into a martial sect, training until their skin broke and hands bled, choosing her twin hook swords from a shelf of dust, lying out in the open under the stars as she talked to Two about vengeance, it carried on. The feeling of something creeping up behind her, slowly, always following.

The roaring was different, then. Sometimes, it was blood pulsing through her veins. Other times it was the drumbeat pounding of her heart. Sometimes, she couldn't tell what it was. It was the roaring that would stay with her, a low, stark reminder of something to be vigilant about. An inevitability.

_Welcome to the wilds, the exalted Jianghu, where the winds will always howl and the roaring will never end._

"What were you thinking about," Yang Chan muttered, before they both blacked out from exhaustion under the cypress tree, "when you tried to use this?" She thumbed a cold jade petal of the lantern, then pushed it towards him. "What were you…going to do? Two?"

Yang Jian shrugged, but just slightly. "You know."

"Just tell me."

"I was trying to kill."

They sat there together, eyes growing heavy.

"I wanted revenge," Yang Jian said quietly, and the roaring started up in Yang Chan again, quietly. "…Was it wrong? To want revenge for what they did?"

Yang Jian closed his eyes. "What did you think about?" 

_What did you think about, when you held out the lantern and obliterated those celestial soldiers such that there were no bodies to bury, Three?_

"I don't know." Yang Chan, Three, sighed. "I was thinking about living. I was thinking about you living."

Her mind flashed red, roaring. They were here. They were breathing. They were alive, and Two's dog was alive, and their enemies were alive, and the House of Yang was still dead.

"Do you still want revenge?" Yang Jian asked her.

"…Yes," she said after a pause.

_Did she? Did she really? She wanted it, maybe, but in the same way a little girl looked at a pretty doll in a shop. Distant, not really understanding the expense, not understanding the passing impulse. Did she need revenge?_

Yang Chan sniffed, rubbed at her face, and then nudged Two. She handed the Lantern over.

Two looked down at it in that detached, wary way one might look at wound, gauging damage. "What are you doing?"

"Take it."

"I don't want it."

"It's yours."

"You can keep it."

"Mother gave this lantern to _you, Two!"_ she said, sitting up, suddenly ablaze with anger. "It's yours…"

They sat there weakly together, breathing heavily.

Then, slowly, Yang Jian took the lantern in his hands. He looked it over once, twice, feeling its weight. "You know, if I could use this — I would have used it." He shrugged in such a loose, un-Two like manner, that Yang Chan felt on edge. "I hate things like this — things where you can't — you can never expect what will happen. I need to know what will happen, Three."

For the longest time, she had no idea, ever, if that lantern would light up and fight for her, no way to know at all.

_(And when she finally grew to expect of it, one day, far from now, it wouldn't.)_

Yang Jian opened Yang Chan's balled up hand, pressing the lantern into it. _"It's yours."_

Yang Chan draped her hair back, unhooking the clasp of her necklace. She turned, taking it off and fastening it behind Two's neck instead. "Then, here." 

Two breathed in, looking down at the jade pendant. Beautifully cut, beautifully polished, with two deep red beads resting on either side. The jade of the pendant was cut from the same jade that made up the Lotus Lantern. Deeply coloured, and yet still transparent enough to see the pink of his hand through the other side. 

Two — Yang Jian — smiled. "Yeah. Thanks."

 

* * *

 

Yang Chan practised the same drills until they became second nature. She bandaged her own hands to pad the blisters and used a rag to wipe her sweat. She did her kitchen shifts and courtyard sweeping and memorised spells used to hurt others, and help others, and save herself. She let Yang Jian watch her back, and never ever backed down when he needed her to watch his.

This was her living a life so distant to the soft whispers of her mother, to those Saturdays spent dancing in heeled shoes and singing high notes to impress. Between the moments where arrows had slotted through the room of their house, and Two had desperately ran out into the open courtyard, in the other room three inches-thick away, Heaven's beloved goddess had given up without a fight.

The Lantern lay smooth and heavy in Yang Chan's palm. She spun it around in her fingers, staring at it, wondering if it was worth it all. She didn't know what she wanted. All she could think was this: between the cluttered moments where their goddess mother had given up all her fancy powers, and pressed its remnant into her son's hands, _not her daughter's_ — Yang Chang couldn't fucking help but think she abandoned her children.

 

* * *

 

"Let me tell you a story," Yuding Zhenren said, calm and slow, with a wise man's tone and not a junkie's. "There once was a pair of siblings who loved and cared for each other very much."

"Alright, Master. You don't have to be so literal," Yang Jian said.

"Shut up. Anyways. There once was a pair of siblings who were brother and sister, and they used to love each other so, so much. But then things changed, as things do, and the sister left her home to live on earth."

"Um," Yang Chan started. "…Can we just please skip straight to the kiddie lesson? We don't need to hear the whole moral story…"

 _"Shht!—_ The brother, however, did not like this. He did not like things he did not understand — like his sister leaving luxury and divinity and everything she could ever want and could ever have, for little, dusty, mortal earth."

Yuding Zhenren cleared his throat, putting on a voice. _"Humans are different from the gods,_ he said, with his noble thoughts. _They live too-short lives. They are too small._ He peered down from the clouds, and saw that his sister had renounced him. And he saw that she was a mother, with her own children, who were siblings that cared and loved each other. The brother did not like it."

The twins had gone silent.

Yuding Zhenren had gone silent too.

"So," Yang Jian started, the moisture drained from his mouth. "So he rained down arrows. He killed the family. He killed the mother."

"Your mother is alive," Yuding Zhenren said, and both Yang Jian and Yang Chan tensed up, eyes flickering to each other before turning back nervously. Like mirror images.

"There once was a mother," Yuding Zhenren said, melancholic, "and she gave up her powers to create that Lantern that will always protect you, and was imprisoned beneath Peach Mountain for treason. She was innocent."

Yang Chan could feel Yang Jian's aura pooling beneath him, hesitant in nature but ready nevertheless to push through the strict, stalwart parts of him to attack their master — all because Yang Chan was there in the room too. Yang Chan kept hers still, ready to act if Yang Jian decided to.

She swallowed her surprise and sighed pleasantly. "Master knew? All along?"

Yuding Zhenren coughed with the end of his pipe still in the mouth and flapped a hand before him to dissipate the smoke. The man went slightly cross-eyed and red, and the hand motion rather made him look like he was shooing away flies. Finally, he took a breath and sat the pipe in his lap.

"Yes," he said sagely. "I've always known you were demigods. And not just any — the son and daughter of the Emperor's younger sister. Funny, those family connections." He coughed again. Then Yuding Zhenren gave them such a warm smile that even Yang Jian's aura dissipated like that smoke.

"I know why you came and I know why you need to leave. You've still so much to do," he said with a nod.

"You knew we were leaving," Yang Jian said softly. His hands tightened on his knees. "You knew we were lying, you knew we were cheating, and yet you still took us in?" There was quiver in his voice, something akin to anger.

"Yes." Yuding Zhenren took a long drag on his pipe, then pursed his lips and popped. "You want to know why?" he asked.

Yang Chan pursed her lips, frowning. "Why?"

"You don't need revenge, Yang Chan," he said. "And you certainly don't, Yang Jian." Yuding Zhenren took another puff and made the room a degree blurrier. "Please don't go after something like that. I'm sure you've heard it all — revenge this, revenge that, _la-di-dah,_ it'll rot your heart."

Yang Chan got up, her body just — just emanating anger, her aura pulsating in waves, shaking the dust in the air, _the air itself._

_Say something, say he's wrong, say how could he say that, he wouldn't if he knew how it felt to have your life turned to ashes, to have your parents your governesses your servants your family your house convulsing, shattering, dying._

Yang Jian got up, too, walking out of line from Yang Chan, looking Yuding Zhenren square in the eyes. "They destroyed our family," he said, facing their master down with a stare, "They killed our elder brother, they tried to kill Three. My heart was rotten the day I lied into this apprenticeship and falsified my oaths. _Master!"_

Yuding Zhenren spat out his last puff of smoke and stood suddenly, but Yang Jian kept going.

"If you knew all along, then the other students are right, you're the one that's rotted in the head."

Yang Chan was already at Yang Jian's back, her side chosen, her head roaring.

Yuding Zhenren looked taken aback from the rush of the speed at which she got there. He put his hands, waving them haphazardly at them. "Don't misunderstand, Chan'er. I was just going to give your brother a hug."

"What?" she murmured weakly. That sentence caught both of them so off guard, Yang Jian stumbled back into Yang Chan out of irrational fear. He — their master had always been loopy and oddball with a few screws loose and they'd never seen him get agitated. But they'd braced for fire, for arrows raining from the sky, for a horrible, virulent hate — the kind they'd run away from, and then had to keep running further away from to save their lives.

Yang Chan shook her head rapidly and took over while Yang Jian floundered. "… We stole our way in — and you don't even care? Why aren't you angry?"

"Who said I wasn't?" Yuding Zhenren said. Yang Jiang and Yang Chan shared a look of utter confusion. "I can be angry not _at_ you, but _for_ you," he went on. "Not all celestials believe in those ways. Not all the celestials condemn what the Jade Emperor condemns, and I think it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks."

Yang Jian and Yang Chan shared another unsure look — they thought their master should sometimes…maybe pay a little more attention to what other people thought. The carefree Yuding Zhenren's smile started at Yang Chan, and then saddened when it got to Yang Jian behind her. "Jian'er, what part of this was a lie? You still promised to be my disciple, and I still promised to act as your master. Just because you're demigods doesn't change that. Does it?"

Yang Chan took a breath, and shrugged. "No, Master."

"No, Master." Yang Jian echoed after her, taking a step back. "I take everything I said back. I'm —"

"You're going to do exactly what you planned, but this time, with my help."

"No." Yang Chan looked up. "You _are_ rotted in the head!" she accused, "The only thing that's kept us alive is that everyone thinks we're dead. We're not bringing more trouble to you!"

"Oh Chan'er," he backed up, shaking his head loonily, "who said anyone would find out?"

He smirked, rolled his head back, and bellowed out laughter. Yang Jian leaned forward and pressed the back of his hand to his mouth to stop himself from chuckling. Yang Chan smiled contagiously, unable to help herself, unable to get the tears out of her eyes.

Then their master put out his pipe with his fingers and leaned in. "Here's my proposition. I will teach you how to make a weapon," Master started. He put the pipe aside, waving the smoke away. "I will teach you to make a weapon so powerful, not even Heaven can stop you from cleaving Peach Mountain apart."

There was a moment of silence and they weighed his words. "Master…why do any of this?" Yang Chan said quietly.

"Getting revenge would just get you killed, and I didn't spend years raising you to go to slaughter. So I'm giving you something better — you can save your mother. Because I know you two, and you're good souls. I love you both, and what you're doing is just."

Yang Jian fell to his knees again, and Yang Chan scoffed, her knees buckling from under her.

_"Master."_

"Master…"

"Listen here, you two. The story I've told you is being told all over the land. It will be told to hundreds of thousands of people, and will be told hundreds of thousands of years from now. It will be told by parents to their children, who will grow up and become parents who have children, who will tell your story. Round and round. It is a circle."

 

* * *

 

Beneath the dainty, bunched-up blossoms that dappled the land in pink, there was a great, spreading forest of peach trees, and beneath the peach trees there was a indomitable mountain, and beneath Peach Mountain there lay a terrible secret.

Years and years ago, the Jade Emperor had trapped an all but powerful goddess beneath the mountain.

They had their axe: carved of hard metals, sharpened on smooth rock, imbued with their lifeblood, everything that their magic had to offer, that they had honed and pulled out of their bones. They had their lantern: a beacon of light and destructive force like none other, that blinded those deserving, a star caught in a jar. One was made for hacking and fighting, but Yang Jian would use it to free their mother from bonds. The other was made for protection, for defence as a last resort, but Yang Chan would use it to fight.

Two would always be the one to have Three's back, and she would always have his. It was an unspoken, golden rule between them, "Two, do whatever you think is right and I'll help you take the heat."

This time, he said, "You hold back our attackers, I'll free Mother."

Yang Chan unsheathed her longsword and it separated, bent and reshaped immediately, curling into her twin hook swords. "Got it."

 _They had a fighting chance, all they ever had was a chance, but the thing about chances was that they were not kind. Sometimes chances were just cruel, impartial pendulums that could swing either way and the final resting place is too_ _—_ _too large to overcome._

It went something like this:

The army rained down on Peach Mountain, and the twins hacked their way to the prison. Then, out of the sky, a light so bright veiled over the land like a sunrise, like a sunrise that was a thousand times too close. The tenth Sun God had descended to fight. The tenth son of the Emperor.

Two tossed the axe to Yang Chan. Yang Chan pulled Two's bow from another plane of existence and tossed that to him. Two arched his back, closed two eyes and left his third open, and stopped breathing, and shot his arrow.

_Your mother is alive. You can save your mother…I know you two, and you're good souls. I love you both, and what you're doing is just._

_The Lantern will keep you safe. Keep it on you, so long as you keep it close, the Lantern will keep you safe._

_(I'm so sorry, dears, I'm sorry. I'm not human.)_

As Yang Jian shot the sun out of the sky, Yang Chan pushed herself into the air, twisted, and dove headfirst back down to earth with an ear-splitting yell. As she split Peach Mountain clean into two, and the Sun God fell like a broken-winged bird, it incinerated the mountain. And with it, the woman imprisoned within.

 

* * *

 

There once was a pair of twins who looked the same, who ran away from the burning pyre of their home, and loved and cared for each other very much. They tried to save their mother from beneath a mountain.

 

* * *

 

Soldiers dragged Yang Chan and Yang Jian to their knees in their gold emblazoned palace and their precious stone court. It had taken three soldiers for each of them to be adequately led in and held down, even with their powers bound. Yang Chan's shoulders had gone past hurting and started to bruise.

Beside her, Two — Yang Jian, was still bleeding down the centre of his face. His third eye was only half open, unseeing. His shoulders moved up-down, up-down in sync with his breathing, still not settled, but it felt like the roaring in Yang Chan was drowning it out. It roared and roared, too loud for her to make out what was being said.

Yang Jian wasn't looking at her. He just stared at the floor lifelessly, like the power had just drained out of him. As easy as the pull and twang of releasing an arrow.

Their mother was dead.

Yang Chan looked up. For the first time, she looked into the face of the one that had started it all, the man that condemned them all to this. The Lantern pulsed alive, unable to not be touched by her emotions. Her chest and neck began to glow, outlining shadowy bones. _She didn't want this!_

_She didn't want the damned Lantern! Never did — she didn't want to know how easy it was to behead a man like it was nothing, or how to restart Yang Jian's heart when he used lightning wrong, or remember the way Master had looked when he handed them the axe like it was hurting him physically, like it was a curse and he'd put it on his disciples. She never wanted to have to turn out to be a goddess. Who asked for that, anyway?_

Yang Chan wanted to sing show tunes and play pipa music and wear silken gowns and be a noble lady. She wanted matte lip stains and intricately-made hook blades and her entire family and life to still be an option to go back to. She wanted none of the reasons for her to have to fight to exist. She wanted her mother to tell her why she'd given up so easily. She wanted Yang Jian to stop calling her _Three_ like they were still children nursing small, black dogs back to life, winning back hair pins from stupid bullies.

Instead, her family's killer looked down from his throne through a curtain of beads, thinking on it. Thinking on how to stomp her and her brother out for the crime of existing.

Their mother was dead. Burnt out from under a mountain, never getting a chance to know why.

And it was kind of their fault.

What had all this become for?

_(It would be later, much later, when she relives the Princess's footsteps, when she understands that their mother was not a coward for giving up her powers and handing Yang Jian the lantern. Not a coward at all. She didn't stand a chance like Yang Chan did, going head to head with Heaven armed to the teeth. The way she fought was the way that was going to change this story a generation down the line. The Lantern that she whispered alive, and now jolts on the hip of a kid with a red ribbon hair tie.)_

The windswept aura clogging up her ears died down, allowing her to catch instances of what was being said.

"So, I digress," Taibai Jingxin, the Great White Gold Star said as he rose from his bow. "I believe I make my case clear. This Yang Jian and Yang Chan are of much more use to the many intricacies of Heaven, and I daresay, _ehem,_ you, Your Imperial Highness, than they are, that is to say…dead?"

A wave of pleased and troubled murmurs rose from the crowd of god, goddesses, deities and heavenly servants.

"Your Imperial Highness," another old man nearly outright yelled, breaking from the crowd, "I, Taishang Laojun, find the argument for it quite agreeable."

A goddess shook her head and split from the crowd too. "I find their power to be very suspicious and fickle," she started, eyeing them. "They have enough power to overwhelm much of the forces sent to neutralise them, but as soon as one Sun God, the first of the ten, arrives, they surrender?"

"Lady Shiji, the eldest Sun God, may he rest among the stars, was defeated."

"What's more, they are halfbreeds!" the goddess continued, not letting the other speak. "Not nearly prestigious enough to afford a place in Heaven! A place one earns during their many lifetimes to ascend to!"

The Emperor watched the gods and goddesses of the court argue, grand words leading to more grand words leading to heated statements.

"I think," Yang Chan watched the Queen Mother lean in, the veil of gems and beads flowing from her headdress clinking together like a wind chime, "We should keep them. What? It's not as if we're giving two rebels a room in the Heavenly Palace — we keep them off-world. On the Thirtieth Layer. In the barracks. In the demon holds. You've seen their strength, Sire. They're not a misstep. They're a commodity."

She smiled kindly, face fixed in beauty. "It would be a waste, otherwise."

After a long, long moment of silence, the Emperor made his decision. He closed his eyes. "I'll…allow it."

"Ah," Taibai Jinxin bowed low, "A great conclusion, Your Imperial Highness, Your Majesty, a wise one." A harsh glance in his way stopped any more of his enthusiasm.

The Emperor sighed deeply. "This is not mercy," he started, a deep, repressed anger vibrating beneath his words. He didn't know their names. The Emperor glanced down for a moment, reading the report laid on his desk. "Yang Jian, Yang Chan, this is penance, not mercy. I'll have you fight my battles, train my soldiers, hone your skills for war." He paused, thinking on his own decree. "You will work off your heavy crimes. And then you can work to better your mother's memory. How is that?"

 

* * *

 

"Sir Ying," Yang Chan said, her voice loud and clear, reaching from one end of the makeshift throne room to another. "I come with summons from the Jade Emperor himself," she said, flapping open the gold cloth on which the terms of surrender were scrawled in surprisingly messy handwriting. Who had written this, anyway?

She cleared her throat. "Accept the proclamation and your Emperor's decree. Sir Ying, if you surrender your false throne without struggle, those who follow you may still have a place in the Heavenly Kingdom."

Yang Chan looked up expectantly. There was pin-drop silence, but no movement. No one had bowed to the imperial decree, words of the Emperor. That was a change of pace, for once.

Sir Ying lounged in his patchy throne room on one of the lower levels. The pretty women standing tall at his side were white with terror, but Sir Ying himself didn't notice. Languidly, he leaned forward, eyeing Yang Chan like he wasn't expecting visitors these days.

"I declare myself 'King of Heaven,' burn the royal watchtower and steal his armada ships with Heaven's best, and all he could manage to send over is a…" Sir Ying looked over his shoulder, meaning to share a humorous look with one of the tall women. Belatedly, one of them shot back an artificial laugh, so artificial even a blockhead like Sir Ying could tell. He turned back, more annoyed by the superficial laugh than Yang Chan's ultimatum.

"All the Emperor could manage was sending a court lady?"

Yang Chan considered her options. "You misunderstand," she said, lowering the scroll, "This one beneath you is nothing as grand as that."

Sir Ying uncrossed his legs. The movement made one of the helmeted guards at the side uneasy.

"This one is just a messenger," Yang Chan said.

"Well, then take this message," Sir Ying swung one leg over the other again, startling two of the women behind him, "I don't surrender, and I wouldn't yield to that scroll of yours if the Emperor came and read it out loud himself." He snickered one-sidedly in the direction of one of the guards. "Now scurry along."

"As you wish."

The act was over. Yang Chan folded the imperial words of the Emperor that all under Heaven had to bow to, and tossed it into the corner like a rag. Yang Chan shook her arms in front of her as if she was catching something, and metal gauntlets materialised on her forearms. The transformation was quick, black lacquered plates and animal hide treated to never age appearing out of thin air, replacing the long folds of her hanfu dress. On her chest, a round, ornate insignia, there read one word: _Tian._

The gesture was enough to shock the lower goddesses behind Sir Ying into hurrying off, finally finding their footing and realising they hadn't gotten off so easily after all. Sir Ying's eyes popped as he leaned forward, leering.

"Let's scurry." Yang Chan said. "Here's your message. I am the message to which the Jade Emperor saw fit to send." She unsheathed her blade, the tip of it curling into a sharp hook. "You're under arrest, Sir Ying."

Sir Ying detached from his false throne replica, scoffing, frog-like. "This is what the Emperor has come to?!" he boomed, radiating anger and magic, "This is what the Great Ruler of the realms must stoop to?! Letting a messenger woman wear the insignia of Heaven?" The man started to laugh, with every note of it getting higher until he broke off in an odd squeak. "This is why we must rebel — _look at these senile ramblings of — look at this Emperor!"_

"It's best you look at this one beneath you." Yang Chan swerved, landing lightly on the throne behind the emperor, the one jump propelling her hard enough to crack the forged throne. The move was so fast Yang Chan could make her next move standing horizontally on the vertical backrest of the seat, gravity had not yet the time to pull her down.

Sir Ying stumbled, reaching belatedly to his sword, drawing it just in time for Yang Chan to lop off his head.

As his body raised the sword, his skull hit the floor.

Yang Chan landed neatly, and huffed.

She only had a moment to herself before the sound of footsteps startled her into alertness again.

Yang Chan lifted a blade and turned to the new threat.

A pitter patter of paws trotted into the room as a large, black dog entered. Yang Chan didn't need to know if there were any other threats around, the dog came bounding up to her the moment she turned.

"Hey, hey, tall thing, don't get fur on my plates, you know I just got them replaced—" she pushed the dog back so he didn't launch himself into her face, but quickly made up for it by squeezing his face between her hands and roughing up his ears.

Another set of footprints, heavy-set, came after. "Xiao Tian, stop drowning her. You know she just got her plates replaced."

Yang Jian tossed a dripping sack on the floor next to him. It must have been the second-in-command. Yang Jian went for the military power while Yang Chan got the political one.

 _"Ehhehehehehe—"_ Yang Chan's laugh turned into a giggle as she let Xiao Tian Quan bowl her over anyway. Yang Jian waited patiently on the sidelines.

After a moment where he realised that this was going to take a while, Yang Jian made a fist, arched it up, and made the ground rise into a seat. He sat and swung his giant spear over his knee to inspect it.

"Another day, another job done," Yang Chan mused.

First it was some horde of demons eating children out of cribs. Then some dangerous escaped convicts with some stolen, powerful artefacts. Then they were dealing with dragon runaways, with monsters no one wanted to fight without sacrificing an arm, particularly powerful spirits. Soon after it was political opponents, like the commander of the Western Armada, like a rogue Taoist official, like routine. And now this so-called Sir Ying.

It seemed to be too late for anyone to realise that the Yangs weren't supposed to come back from the missions they were sent on. That they weren't sent away to serve. They weren't supposed to return triumphant, return with a win every time, and return patiently to wait for more.

They weren't supposed to keep coming back.

"Let's head back to the Twentieth Layer," Yang Jian said, after cleaning his spear with a rag that looked suspiciously like the rebel army flag. "Get some rest before the next one."

"Yeah."

And yet they always did.

 

* * *

 

They used to sit under the cypress trees and look at the stars from between the dark blotches of branches. Before then, they used to climb up on the tiled roof of their estate and do the same. Up high like this, higher than any tree branch or roofing had any business being, there was nothing in the way of the heavens. Even this high, the stars still seemed so small.

"The ship's about to stop," Yang Jian started, and got up without any trouble whatsoever. "A few demons shouldn't be any trouble."

Yang Chan yawned, stretched her arms and felt drowsily for the hilt of her sword. When her movements became flustered, grabbing every which way at nothing, Yang Jian kicked one of her hook swords into her side.

_"Ah!"_

"C'mon, Three."

"What? Do you think we can't take down some demons? Is it because they happen to live in a desert? Does getting sand in your hair frighten you? We just sparred for three hours because, if I remember correctly, you said you wanted a more _'even'_ match." Yang Chan got up from lying on the hull of the sky ship, yawning, still.

Yang Jian resisted the urge to yawn and rolled his neck. "You know even one of us could do it. You know they only order both of us to go because the Emperor would rather not see the faces of his _scandal,_ " he said, putting particular emphasis on the last word so it sounded rather like twisting a nail.

"Have you stopped to consider," Yang Chan started, chipper, "that it might just be your outer workings."

Yang Jian paused a moment, seriously considering it. "My what."

"Maybe you're just ugly."

Yang Jian took another moment to pause. "Three," he said without moving a muscle, "we have the same face."

"Do we? You have a five o'clock shadow," she accused.

Within moments, they were both curled over the side of the ship, snickering dumbly. Yang Jian rubbed his chin absently, smiling so brightly that it kind of hurt Yang Chang. (It hurt not know that she was missing something until it snuck up on her. It wasn't like her to get snuck up upon at all.)

"We've cleared our names ages ago," she went on. "When is it going to be enough?"

Yang Jian peeled a loose line of hair out of his face only for it to fall out again. "It will be enough. When we strike down enough enemies, Heaven can't possibly deny us what we're due."

Yang Chan bit the inside of her cheek. "Every assignment, they order us to deal with it. Every time a deity goes rogue, we're number one on the deployment list. Second brother," she said, her hands going subconsciously to squeeze the hilts of her swords, "they hate us for it."

Yang Jian turned to regard her.

"They hate us for always being first vanguard, and they hate us for always completing it."

Under the dark, starry sky, Yang Jian's smile made his face look gaunter. "That's just what I want."

Yang Chan huffed into the air.

"Anything they can do, we can do better. We are gods," Yang Jian said, bittersweet. "And we'll be perfect."

The words shook her, even though she wasn't sure why. Yang Chan pursed her lips, looking away.

"Are we supposed to do this forever?"

Yang Jian twisted and turned to her, brows lifting. Everything soured in a short, stark moment. "Apologies. I wasn't aware you had something better to do."

"I'm serious."

Yang Jian held back, waiting for her to answer properly.

Yang Chan straightened up and looked him in the eye. "I don't want to be this, whatever this is, forever, you know."

She could see what Yang Jian was thinking, because she was thinking the same thing. What else was there for people like them? Where else could they go, if not _— back?_

Yang Chan tugged on her belt. "How long has it been since we've gone home?" she said, and she wanted to cringe for sounding like some old haggard man who made a living at sea, being completely serious.

Yang Jian, for the moment, didn't respond kindly.

"Which home?" Yang Jian started, a curious lilt to his voice. "Please, pray tell. The one that went up in flames, the one we vowed never to go back to to protect our master, or the bunkers assigned to us by Taibai Jingxin?"

"The human realm."

"We're going there right now."

"I mean," Yang Chan chewed back her words, trying not to raise her voice, "Not in some dusty desert or deep mountain where some passing god complained about some decapitated heads — I mean where — where _humans_ are — where _people_ are!"

Yang Jian considered her for some time. Then, quietly, like he didn't want to say more for fear of hurting her, said, "You can't be — can't be thinking we are still the same as we were in our youth."

Yang Chan scoffed.

"What youth? Really — the one where I murdered our pursuers in the bushes, the one where we spent a bunch of years forging a magic axe, or the one where we're on a sky ship, talking about how long we're going to pantomime with these gods?"

"I think we're both past the stage of classifying as youths, Three."

It was true, but Yang Chan still screamed back, _"We live forever, Yang Jian!"_

"So I will fight, forever."

He said it so seriously, with such vigour, that it caught Yang Chan off guard.

"I will fight. It doesn't matter what they think of us, it doesn't matter if they think we're god enough or not, I will keep fighting until no one else ever has to go through what we did."

They didn't need to fit in, Yang Jian always said. They needed to be _better._

Because he thought so, so did Yang Chan, she told herself.

 

* * *

 

They carved out the bruises and the places that felt filthy, and replaced them with celestial's light. They no longer bled red, they no longer bruised purple, but sported cracks and chips until the skin grew back over it smooth.

It was all she needed, all a necessity, she told herself, and managed a smile.

Yang Chan walked up to the Southern Heaven Gate, where Yang Jian was already waiting for her. He was dressed in a sleek, navy blue, silken clothes that could suit a son of a nobleman. Unused to it, Yang Jian brushed his eye. "I think this is it."

"You think?" Yang Chan chuckled in her throat. "We can't let down our guards, Second Brother," she said seriously. "They'll turn around and take it all away in a heartbeat."

Yang Jian's third eye fluttered shut "Yeah…yeah."

Yang Chan took his shoulder and squeezed affectionally. "C'mon."

Now they were back in the gold-emblazoned palace in the precious stone court, before the same celestial crowd, and the same judge and jury.

They said living well was the best revenge. Yang Chan and Yang Jian thought, reaping the benefits of each promotion on the stage, outperforming the gods that looked down on them, finally sharing the same rank of them — _outranking them_ — was the best revenge.

"You've done well," was all the Jade Emperor could bear to say.

Yang Chan smiled, and bowed in line with Yang Jian.

_(She briefly wondered what they looked like. If they had semblance of their mother left in them, if any, and if it was like looking into the eyes of his younger sister. Maybe it was like the princess herself had returned to Heaven.)_

_Roundabout._

_Returned._

The Jade Emperor commanded, "Henceforth, I bestow upon you your titles as you take your place with the gods."

Two goddesses came forth, presenting two white jade seals.

"Rise, Erlang Shen."

"Rise, Sanseng Mu."

For that moment, that one, shining moment, all Yang Chan heard was quiet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I 100% believe that over-telling a story, telling parts that don't need to be said, is a bad thing. 
> 
> You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain. 
> 
> Read my completely Extra™ Yang twins fic guys. 
> 
> On Sanseng Mu's title - I know in pinyin it should really be spelt as Sansheng Mu - in fic I leave out the 'h' so no one is tempted to pronounce it as 'shhhh.' (Ditto for Da Seng/great sage.) Her title is literally 三圣母, "Third Sage Mother," or even "Third Saint Mother." 二郎神/Erlang Shen is like "Second Youth God."
> 
> (Not sure if I feel like writing Yang Chan and Liu Yanchang romance. What do you think? Or should I just leave it at this and go back to the mountain crushing?)


	4. The Yangs v The Heavenly Order

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There was a boy, and he was called Two, and he ran out into the courtyard, feeling the first drops of rain begin to spot the grey tile floor. 
> 
> There was something, someone, in the haze — a great, looming man who stood and stood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Your Servant" is going for 臣, "Chen" like a high ranked minister or official, but respectfully.
> 
> "True General" is going for 真君, "Zhenjun"。

 

In the middle of the day, the sky had suddenly turned like a face in a mask in a show, swallowed up in such a short, stark moment it was as if the sun had been shot from its pedestal. Clouds formed like a vicious, roaring sea, giant waves that reared up and hung static in the air, never breaking. Something heavy lay in the atmosphere, in the cold humidity, like the sky had sunken from weight.

There was a boy, and he was called Two, and he ran out into the courtyard, feeling the first drops of rain begin to spot the grey tile floor.

There was something,  _someone,_  in the haze — a great, looming man who stood and stood.

Behind him, a mass of flags tossing to and fro like plumes of smoke. In his hands, a death sentence. In his eyes, not a shadow of mercy.

He lifted a hand, and Two's house, and Two's family, and a bit of Two himself perished.

 

* * *

 

That was not what happened.

Yang Jian did indeed run out into the courtyard, feeling the burgeoning weep of rain.

Yang Jian did indeed see the plumes of rolling cloud, and the — the _thing_  trapped inside it.

But he did not —  _could not_ have seen a man.

He just thought he did.

 

* * *

 

Walking home from class, young Yang Jian was always met by a gaggle of older kids. He was a quiet kid that was even quieter around people he didn't like. He often found that it was useless to snap back, useless to try and convince someone otherwise when they didn't want to be convinced. He did not like to waste his breath like that. So he was good at being quiet. He put a practiced smirk on as the older kids commented eagerly on his less-than-conventional looks, passing without looking at them.

Although they talked no one dared lay a finger on him. Older kids might be older kids, but he was tall, comparatively wealthy, and what's more it hardly bothered him. But thing was, when said enough times, words became truth. When everybody seemed to think it, regardless if they said it loud enough for him to hear, those kinds of phrases slowly sunk into Yang Jian's skin, irrefutable, until it became part of him.

"It's that kid," they said. "That three-eyed freak."

From a young age he was painfully aware of his otherness in a way that Three was not.

"Yeah?" her voice, sandpaper against stone, said. "Why don't you repeat that. Say it again," Three proposed, standing over three fallen figures, a fistful of shirt collar under her chin.

"Three, you're wasting your time." Yang Jian sighed, turning back.

"How I waste my time is up to me," Three said merrily, making a clear invitation for him to chat in the middle of her beating up some trouble starters.

Though Yang Jian never started up trouble, he was excellent at finishing it. He walked over to where Three listlessly dropped the first guy. "Listen," he said, resolute. "My name is Yang Jian, the best three-eyed freak in this city. You needn't tell me yours."

He marched off back to their magistrate estate, side-by-side with Three, who was always on his side. He loved her for it, but sometimes wished she wouldn't. He wished she could learn to compromise, sometimes, and not stick her neck out to danger.

Yang Jian needed Three to be on his side, but never step out to be hurt in his place. (Soon enough, Three began to get a lot less admirers and a lot more enemies. People who meant well could hurt themselves in the process, and Two had to be aware of that.)

Being a freak was not so much an insult to Two but a fact. It only hurt when he let it.

So he just didn't let it.

 

* * *

 

When Yang Jian was still called Two, he saw a baby bird hop over the side of its nest, dropping to the floor without so much as a thud. He'd gone on over, walking towards it with tentative reproach, wondering how it could be so stupid as to fall out of its own nest. Still alive, Two had scooped the young thing up in this gangly hands and bought it straight home to his mother.

"Oh, Jian'er. All of these black-feathered birds this season have left already."

"Left?" Two echoed, confused. "Left, where?"

"To a warmer place, a new home," Mother said, squashing his cheeks between her hands affectionally, letting go before he could get uppity. "Don't worry, though. They'll come back. They always do. There and back, and there and back, like a circle. And this little one's spirit will be here when they get back, too."

The little blackbird was small and sickly, too weak to be able to fly. Two touched its back, trying to smooth down the jutting feathers.

"Can't you fix it? Like you fixed elder brother's arm?"

Mother smiled sadly. "I'll try, alright? I'll try make the little one better."

When Yang Jian was still called Two, but older, more stern, he saw a black dog get kicked in the jaw. Its dark skin, loose from hunger, rippled from the impact of the blow. He did not go over, watching the man who'd thrown him out bat at the dog one last time before scooting back into his temple. The dog had been caught stealing offerings from the temple, starved as it had been. It was hungry. This was logical. 

Two was holding half a pork and cabbage steamed bun from the best street vendor. He was not that hungry. Logically, he tossed the bun to the dog, who trotted up cautiously, sniffing the ends of it like it might be a trap.

"I'm not trying to poison you," Two said, and walked two steps away.

The dog ravenously scoffed the thing down. When its head came back up, it looked like there was some light in his eye.

This pleased Two.

 

* * *

 

"You can't bring a dog home, you dummy-idiot!" Yang Jiao said, flapping his hand at the dog.

The dog had one-sidedly followed him home. Yang Jian shifted his third eye to look at the dog, keeping the rest of his sight on his elder brother. There was a split-effect in his mind: seeing two images at once, filing two memories away at once. One was of Yang Jiao's face, screwed up in exasperation. One was of pitch black darkness.

He'd forgotten. He'd covered his third eye with a sash.

"You can't bring every hungry stray back like we're a free for all zoo. We have horses to feed, you know!"

Yang Jiao put his hand in Two's hair and ruffled it until it was all tangled up. Two had to physically stop him. "Ok!—Stop! And I didn't bring him home. He followed me."

"What the heck are you guys—" Three's eyes lit up, two reflective gems. "What did you do to its face?!" Three started, bobbing down to stare at the dog's clearly missing tooth as it panted happily.

"Nothing. I didn't do anything to him. He followed me home and I don't appreciate it."

The dog licked Two's hand.

Two did not tell them he appreciated it.

 

* * *

 

Walking home from the market, Two who was a kid was now starting to look like a gangly teenager, who was met by the gaggle of older kids, who were now a gaggle of young men. He was alone, and they were in a large group, and he wasn't afraid of people he didn't like. Being afraid only invited people to talk louder at him, laugh more pronounced and artificially.

"Hey Yang Jian, why do you have three eyes?"

"Hey, hey, c'mon man, he just asked you a question."

"Let me tell you a story. My old cow had a calf once — I know cos my Ma delivered it," the shortest one with the barest outline of facial hair started, "And man it was crazy — this calf was deformed  _as hell._  It had three eyes. _Three!_ And you know what my Ma did? My Ma had to snap its neck the second it came out. She screamed when she saw it too! _Haha!_ Screamed her head off. Then we all had to book it to Pusa's temple. It took days to get the bad luck out of our house."

Two said nothing.

He hadn't heard this one before so it couldn't be true. They'd exhausted all their insults. Freak was not a insult but a noun and it only hurt when he let it.

Don't let it.

"You know what that means," the young man who was no longer a kid said. "What that means is that three eyes is a bad omen, not even Pusa can't look down on you happily. You're a bad omen, Yang Jian.  _Best freak in the city,_ you're a bad omen."

The man advanced.

(Being a freak was not so much an insult to Two but a fact. It only hurt when he let it.

So he just doesn't let it.)

"Why are you so quiet all the time huh,  _Two?"_  the one with the pony tail started, closing in on the right, and Two's eyes flickered to him, wide.

"You know, why even does that two-eyed sister of yours call you that?" the third one added conversationally, cocking his head on the left. "I mean, it seems to me you should be Three, and she should be Two —  _hahahahahaha!"_

 _"Haha_ , what do you think, Two?"

Yang Jian raised his head, raised lightning and fury from his throat, barely biting it back.  _"Don't —_ call me Two."

He threw the package of things he bought to the side and whipped his coat off of him. He drew his hands into fists, squaring up.

"Holy shit — you _did it,_ bro—"

"You made him fucking lose it —  _hahahahahaha."_

"—When we're done with you," the shortest, stockiest one of them said, "we're going after that two-eyes. That bitch."

 

* * *

 

"Hey Jian'er, c'mere!"

Young Two went to sit next to his mother at the guest table, helping himself to tea Three hadn't finished.

"Look at this."

With a great, beaming smile, she produced a handful of black feathers.

"What on earth is that?"

"Open your hands, son!"

He did. She flopped the thing into his palms, to which it started to bunch up and twitter.

"You healed him!" Two said, teeth gnashing together in his own giant, beaming smile.

"That's right!" Mother clapped her hands together, tucking a finger under the bird's head to stroke it.

It was so small and so warm, Yang Jian held it without moving a muscle in case he hurt it.

"Tell me the truth," Two said. "Wearing a cap over my head, wearing a sash over my head isn't the same as mending broken bones, is it?"

His mother's smile, like leaping waters, like a shoreline receding far, far into the distance, vanished.

"Oh, Yang Jian. Oh, there's nothing—" She stopped, took a breath, and started again. "No one can mend things that are not broken."

Two's mother leaned in, clasping a hand to the back of his head, and told him the truth.

"There is not a thing wrong with you. There is not a thing wrong with having three eyes, or four, or seven. What's that going to do in the grand scheme of things? Help you see better? What a curse that would be," she said sarcastically. " _Hahah,_  no, it's a gift. A very rare one, actually.  _There is nothing wrong with you."_

Yang Jian smiled, taking it to heart. "Alright."

 

* * *

 

Two rocked forward, planting the first punch and drawing the first blood at the same time — one right hook into pony-tail's eye.

"By that logic," he stated, "you should call yourself one-eye."

He hit him again and again,  _teeth, nose, jaw,_  his left hand holding onto the guy's shoulder, his right hand pummelling. But the others had recovered from the initial shock, got back on their feet and charged at him — charged like bulls with their knuckles braced like horns.

One of them got behind him, snaked their arms around his throat and with all his power, started to crush, and Two felt his airways constrict down to a speck, and another person dealt blows to his head. They scuffled, sixteen limbs, four pairs of feet moving to and fro before Two swung whoever was behind him into the guy in front, dealing a solid kick to his back, sending them falling like dominos.

They got up, grouped up, and circled him, circled him, one grabbing onto his shoulder, and another snagging his arm behind him, another elbowing him in the ribs. Two buckled, spitting blood onto the floor, getting out of the arm-lock by kicking in the short one's solar plexus, trying to land another punch, another hit, another—

Someone was screaming in his ear, loud and startled, startling Yang Jian as well.

"YOU STUPID DOG, GET OFF — GET—"

It...it had followed him home again. 

Someone abandoned Yang Jian's right side to kick at the black, growing, vibrating _thing_ , a great mass of black fur that pounced and gripped onto the ring-leader's leg with its teeth and did not want to let go. All of a sudden the members jumped on the dog, kicking him in with frantic urgency, dealing blow after heavy blow.

Yang Jian's insides heaved up-down. His eyes flickered, the image in his head splitting into two, seeing two things at once. One was of the group holding him back, clawing at him and puling at his arms. The other was of the dog, its jaw unlocking to snap wildly at the attackers. 

Another person disconnected from Yang Jian, and stomped down on the dog squarely on the fine line of his spine.

Yang Jian growled, punched out the remaining man at his left. Then he went and punched the rest of them down, one by one, one after the other.

 

* * *

 

"I didn't ask you to help me," Yang Jian said between his clenched teeth, like he was swallowing a particularly bitter pill. "I told you not to follow me back from the goddamned market. I told you to stay away when I am walking down the goddamned street. I did  _not,"_  Yang Jian clenched his fist,  _"—I did not_ ask a stick figure like you to barge in on someone else's business, because you have insurmountably bad judgement, and can't listen to a word I'm saying because you—"

Yang Jian took a slow, shaky breath, his hands accidentally grazing a bad bruise, causing the dog to flinch. The dog. Flinching from hurt, not being able to let it  _not._

"Because you are a  _fucking dog."_  Yang Jian's breath faltered, his anger swelling in a pit in his belly, his grazed hands shaking madly on the black dog's back, making its small, skinny frame shake too.

"Who do you think you are?" Yang Jian said, scratching the fucking dog on its ears. All around him were bits of ripped clothes, a shoe, two white incisors. The mess of blood on the floor looked like Three's lip colour smudged over her face, red and gradient. Yang Jian hung his head and pressed his palms to his face, hard.

The black dog whimpered. It barked softly, pressing a paw into Yang Jian's knee. The air was filled up by the weighty sound of panting that was starting to slow down. The black dog watched Yang Jian, blinking. The black dog that was bony-thin, and insurmountably stupid, and whose bite was on par with its bark, stepped in Yang Jian's place to be hurt.

"What are you goddamned looking at?" Yang Jian spat.

You know who cares about you being deathly quiet, or being a pimply, gangly teenager, or being possessed of three-eyes?

Not dogs.

 

* * *

 

"Let me tell you a story," Father had said, once upon a time, long ago, long before a dog had ever tottered onto their front door, much closer to when a bird had fallen out of it nest. "Once, there was a strong and daring goddess who ruled the office of desire in Heaven. She was charged with the duty of limiting the gods' and deities' mortal desires such as affection, greed and ambition — because too much of one would cause imbalance in the world. This was a very important duty."

"What?" Three said in the large bed opposite Two. "Too much affection is bad for you?!"

"Sometimes." Father stumbled, eyes blinking a lot of times trying to think of something to counter. It had been a long day for their Father, who's neat, official clothes had been ruffled by the wind and rain, his hair flicking this way and that having been messed up by being in a tight hat all day. Every morning, he disappeared before Two and Three had a chance to see him off, and came back just before dinner was served. "Well, I said affection, greed _and_ ambition. If you have too much of all three, that's probably bad. It will probably cause things to go whack."

"But what if—" Two started.

"Moving on!" Father said. He got up from the side of Two's bed to migrate to the side of Three's. Story telling was a sport in which their Father was a ball, and Two and Three vied for his attention, and their Father was adamant that both had a fair split of him. "In the Heavenly Prison, there was a great and evil dragon who had escaped from his chains — this dragon fled to earth only to be chased down by the strong and daring goddess!" he said, with the air of someone delivering a particularly good case judgment.

"But, after a long and gruelling fight with the dragon, the goddess won at far too steep a price," Father said. "The dragon's hook of a claw wedged itself into her heart, and damaged it beyond repair."

"No…" Three echoed.

"No indeed," Father said. He got up, picked up his seat, and migrated back to Two.

"And she was found by a mortal. Now, this mortal was too weak and powerless to help her," he said, bringing a large, warm palm to Two's face, brushing back his hair out of the eye on his forehead, "but, he had seen that terrible fight, and how hard the daring goddess fought, and when the goddess was too tired, collapsed on the floor, he offered his own heart to replace hers."

"But then." Two sat up. "Then he would die."

"Yes."

"What?" Three said weakly. "Why is it so sad? He has to die? This story is stupid — it's boring —  _it's dummy-idiot._ "

"She's right," Two backed, "Why did she let herself get hit by the dragon? Why can't the mortal—"

"But the story isn't finished," Father chastised, patting Two on the chest. He got up and shuffled his seat next to Three again.

"The mortal offered his heart to replace hers. But the goddess, the strong and daring goddess who's job was to judge the hearts of deities was moved by what she saw in the little old mortal. And she told him, she will take the offer. And she told him, she will live. And she told him, he will live as well. And she told him, they should live together."

Two turned his head, seeing his father's back crumple lazily. "And they did. They lived very, very happily, and had beautiful, smart children. And that is the end."

Father suddenly dropped, flopping all his weight onto Three's bed as she yelped and pulled at his hair. "Okay, good night now! Good night, good night!"

When he came back over, Two remained still as a log in bed as Father did his routine and squashed him under the covers. Two snickered quietly and reached out to embrace him. That was the end of the story.

 

* * *

 

But it was not the end.

 

* * *

 

In Yang Jian's memories:

A beautiful estate mansion cleaved apart and its fragile domesticity,  _always so fragile, those things, peaceful things_ , spilling out and disintegrating, making an ugly mess. A million puzzle pieces of a mansion strewn in the dirt that could not be put back together and still be the same. Broken cups and ink paintings and a blue-painted prized vase. The same thing happening to his older brother, an arrow tip piercing between his ribs, but the thing that come out of his wounds was red blood instead. The assault rained down a monsoon of heady, heated aura, and in that moment, too small, too trembling, young Two was  _not_  too petrified to run.

He ran into the courtyard, where the rain had started to spit against his cheek and darken the tiles of the floor, and looked up and saw—

_What did he see?_

 

* * *

 

"Erlang Shen!" a young celestial started, the spear he was holding dropping and causing a very large sound to rebound down the hall. "I — I mean, True General. Sir, this is the archives. Surely, someone should be able to file your reports without you coming in person…"

"It's fine. Open the door."

"Yes. Yes, True General."

(When Yang Jian had killed a particularly troublesome grassland demon, he'd achieved clearance to military records and assault files in Heaven. The first thing he looked up was the Yang Case, a musty manilla file trapped under a dime a dozen other straight-forward cases, which showed absolutely nothing on how the attack was carried out, how the mess was cleaned up, or how his family had ultimately perished. Whether they had died in the flames or in the secondary shower of arrows. In fact, this poorly made report had listed himself and Three as part of the 'deceased' list, little cursive after notes after the main target—)

_Princess Yaoji._

Small children did not know their parent's names. They just knew them as mama. As baba.

Yang Jian and Yang Chan were not small children when the House of Yang had caved in and fire consumed everything. They still hadn't know their mother by that name.

(Yang Jian had made it his mission to sweep up the filing system and started reporting his missions in what he thought was the minimally acceptable way. Times, dates, which generals were involved and toll counts. The Yang Case was so sparsely documented it was probably an insult. As a new god that had come to definitively read up on how exactly his family had died, Yang Jian, not exactly fantastic in the head in the moment, was disappointed that he was relieved.)

"Lord Erlang," the guard bowed low as Yang Jian left the way he came. 

"I'm done. Close the door."

 

* * *

 

In Yang Jian's memories:

His feet moving on their own accord, his mind hanging languid — as if he was being pushed to and fro by currents of water, submerged by unfathomable depths, his lungs refusing to cooperate. Smoke, shrouds and shrouds of it, cresting up like a dragon's head, filling all the available space of where the roof still held on. The sky, acres and acres of it reaching into the air like it had expanded, like it went deeper than he'd thought, stirring like a keg bubbled over. The people of their household crying out, running past them, rushing every which way. His home, lying broken. His world, falling apart.

"Take this." Their mother pressed the Lantern into Yang Jian's hand.

There was something wrong with her. Something wrong with her face — the paleness of it, her veins popping like the very end of a long sickness, sunken into her skin, dragging down her breath. Like she'd scraped something from her very soul.

"Yang Jian — Yang Chan—" Their mother dropped to her knees, and the twins dropped to their knees as well, and she squeezed Yang Jian and Three so tight it was hard to breathe, so tight but Yang Jian didn't mind — and her heartbeat thumped like drums drawing to a close, so fast, so fast,  _too fast._ "The Lantern will keep you safe. Keep it on you, so long as you keep it close, _the Lantern will keep you safe."_

They heard soldiers march into the first courtyard, heard the distinct sound of wood cracking where their servants went to board up the doors, heard sounds of yelling and swearing and screams—

_To the doors, to the doors you fools! — No! Get out through the back, the back — what'shappeningwhodidthis — THE DOOR — help me lift the table — DOOR — Oh Lord, Oh Heaven, please, spare us — Where's young master and mistress?! Oh gods where are the children?! — Please, Lao Ye - Old Master, no! no no — Get away. He's dead._

"What's going on?" Yang Jian remembered saying, stricken. "Who are they?"

"Why are they doing this?!" Three cried.

Their mother hugged them again. "I'm so sorry, dears, I'm sorry." She sighed shortly. "I'm not human."

She began to explain.

 

* * *

 

Also in Yang Jian's memories:

His cheek brushing on magistrate robes, the smell of tea leaves that had seeped into it, somehow, and large hands pressed into the small of Yang Jian's back. He was a child warm in his bed, swaddled in two woven blankets with starlings stitched into the cover. His father smiled. The story was over.

"Goodnight, Son."

"Goodnight, Father."

When Two hugged his father, he felt no heartbeat.

 

* * *

 

They had no time to take valuables, or look through Three's burnished box for her favourite trinkets — a broken earring, missing buttons, insect wings. No time to find Yang Jian's beloved pair of boots, the carved hairpin, not even time to find something to cover his forehead. The wind rushing into his third eye made it water. The weight of what had happened made the rest of them water. They ran into the woods behind their house hand in hand, never stopping, Yang Jian clutching the Lantern in a hot fist. Xiao Tian Quan, the dog that followed, ran through the thick undergrowth, trailing ahead on a sprained leg.

Their disjointed pace broke them apart and Three lunged again to catch his hand. Then she tripped, pulling them both down, but Yang Jian got up fast and pulled her back into a run. His hand got hot and slippery but Three refused to let go. He was happy she didn't. They ran all the way to the outskirts of the village, not saying anything. They just stood there on the threshold, panting. He told Three to look at the sky, because he saw something there, he saw—

There didn't seem to be anymore tears in Three. There didn't seem to be anything in her left.

"Two," she said, hoarse, unable to indulge in him. 

On the watershed point between their childhood estate and the single unpaved path that would lead out of the city, they were free.

"C'mon, Two—"

_(Young Chen Xiang, who had nothing, who had no one, was lost and frozen in the moment where everything broke apart. But Yang Jian, who was small and lost and afraid, who'd ran as fast as his two exhausted legs could carry him, however, was not alone. Small, and lost, and also so afraid, Three clambered along with him, Xiao Tian Quan nipped at his cold fingers.)_

"We need to go," Three gingerly pushed Yang Jian. "We need to keep moving."

He nodded. "Yeah." Yang Jian looked at her, eyes red.

They began their journey into notoriety together; two ill-advised minds were better than one as they figured what they wanted to do and how they were going to do it. These were the minds of those who had lost everything, who smelt of ashes for days past, that had never been able to escape it long afterwards, or the ghost of it. These were the minds of those haunted with last words, who had known nothing but themselves and then stripped of even that.

 _"You are demigods,"_  their mother had said, smiling, with triumph in those words. _"I love you. Both of you. I love you so much."_

_Demigods._

_Demigods,_ she'd said.

What on earth did that make him?

They kept moving, going into the next village, and then the next, all the way into the mountains.

A few days after the House of Yang was razed to the floor, the air dancing with blackened soot, a black bird flew onto a broken beam. Its wings jutted out just a bit funny, its feathers a dark, healthy sheen. Its head twitched left-right, blinking at the soft glow of a few struggling embers.

It came back.

Yang Jian didn't see it.

 

* * *

 

Once upon a time, the strong and daring goddess, and the powerless and compassionate mortal perished.

And that was the end.

But circles have no end.

They are tautological, go round and round, like a dog chasing its own tail.

 

* * *

 

Yang Jian lay under the cypress tress, all his belts and gauntlets and gear tossed aside. Xiao Tian Quan lay on his stomach, his head rolling here and there every time he was about to nod off. A soft light illuminated the dark sheen on his coat with his every breath.

"Hey?"

"Hey, what?"

"You're still awake?" Three chimed. She lay at a distance away, her back flat on the ground, a hand in the air. Magic sparked before her. She was tracing lines of light in the air, drawing flowers. Lotuses. Drawing the Lantern, maybe.

The Lantern was pulsing by her side, like glowworms caught in a net.

"Yes. You have my attention," Yang Jian said. 

Three yawned, slow and sticky. "It's kind of getting worse."

"What is?"

"You know. The thing."

"…The sound."

Three sat up. The light display dissipated before her like flames flickering out. "The roaring. Two…I keep feeling it. Something's going to happen, and I can't tell what the hell it's going to be, and that drives me crazy!"

Yang Jian yawned. "What do you want me to do about it?"

Three scoffed. She punched her fists to the ground, pulled fistfuls of grass and tossed it over Yang Jian.

"Mmph!" Yang Jian blew the grass of his face, blinking it out of his eyes. "Ow."

"Ow? It's just grass."

"Ow. My feelings."

"Grand of you to admit you have feelings." Three thudded back down on the floor, so hard in fact that her mouth flew open and pain flashed across her face.

"…It's kind of funny," Yang Jian said, his voice rasping between them as he turned his head.

"What is?"

Yang Jian breathed in. He breathed out. "There's such an incredible blindness in all of us. You can feel things that will go wrong, but are unable to know where or when or why. I have eyes that can see through what is true and false, but cannot know when someone is lying. Master can see the future, but can never know how it will come to pass, can never make any sense of it. Xiao Tian Quan…"

Xiao Tian made a sound, tilting his head in Yang Jian's direction. ' _Hm?'_

"Xiao Tian can understand us speak. But cannot speak back."

"Two, you're the only one who can understand him."

Xiao Tian raised his head. _'You asked that passing god to make me more durable, not a wordsmith.'_

"I asked him to make you live as long as I do. You being able to talk is just a bonus."

 _"Woof, woof,"_ Three imitated, "That's what I'm hearing."

_'Tell her I heard that.'_

"She wants you to hear," Yang Jian stated.

"Hey, hey, Xiao Tian, don't come over here — _no!"_ Three screeched, getting licked and mauled by his dog.

"Good dog," Yang Jian said, grinning at no one.

 _"Hahaha—hahaha —_  it's alright," Three said between the dog attack. "Even if we're blind, we can cover each other's bases, right?"

"Right," Yang Jian agreed.

Three would always have his back. He would always have hers. He closed his eyes.

_He lays on white, shifting sand in the middle of a once-courtyard that reached into a curved horizon, where the red sky met the cool surface of the sand. But it is not sand. It is ash. It is suddenly not ash, but things like wood and books and soulless, empty people that would soon turn into ash. He looks up, looks into the red sky and sees the twisting, grasping clouds and the man— he—_

His third eye shuttered open.

_What did he see?_

"Two?" Three asked.

_He did not see that._

"We were so blind."

Three was quiet. She sat up, staring at him with a worried, tired look.

Everyday, they watched their father leave for court, they studied literature and poetry, rode their own horses to the wild, green hills, went out to the city to watch street performances, and lived their lives as noblemen. Lived their lives like normal.

 _Take this,_ said the goddess called Lady Yaoji, the Princess, with her deathly pale face, her exhausted, sickly frame, knowing exactly what she'd done. Knowing exactly how this would all play out — anticipating it.

"She should have told us," he said. "If she'd told us who we are, and what we could do. If she told us who she was, and what she could do —  _maybe nothing would have burned."_

 

* * *

 

In the face of noisy candy wrappers, jokes in bad taste, loud kitchen cutting boards, rumours of his and his sister's lineage as proof of their master's impaired judgement, and lunchroom chatter, Yang Jian tuned out the unnecessary.

White noise. The rest of it, temporary things, they all became a tangled blur of white noise.

Master Yuding Zhenren told him, "Chaotic people waste their lives, Yang Jian." And then he'll laugh as Yang Jian tried to pry his pipe from him. "Don't be too much like me, Jian'er. Don't be too topsy-turvy."

And he was right. Chaotic people wasted their lives.

He found solace in the rigidity of defence drills and recited battle spells. There was a sense of control in his life that he could rely on. So long as he had control, he knew where the pieces fell and so could govern how things would be. So long as he had power, he was in control.

The only thing that described the power that emitted from the Sky Eye, was that it looked like thunder. Not like lighting, zipping by bright and instantaneous, it  _looked_  like the sound thunder made — how the sound would look like, if it had a form. It did not pulse in the dark and light up at odd hours and blind his eyes. It did not burst alight and cause fires Yang Jian did not ask it to. It would never fail him.

Chaotic people didn't survive.

Yang Jian's lungs seized, forcing air to flood back into his lungs all at once, his chest expanding and dropping in great, big heaves as he got his bearings again. His forehead hurt after the beam from the Sky Eye simmered away.

_"Yang Jian! Yang Jian! Are you alright? Oh, I underestimated how much it would be….oh, I'm sorry, Yang Jian, I'm sorry, Jian'er…"_

Yang Jian touched a hand to his eye, feeling the feverish heat of his head. It came away wet. Blood trickled down his face, splitting him into asymmetrical halves. "No. I'm fine, Master. I have control of it now. Every time I use it, it gets a little more accurate. It's...very strong. It's very strong."

And it was his.

 

* * *

 

People were rowdy and stupid and impulsive and felt so much, desired so much, loved too hard, and it caused them to rot in the head, making decisions their better selves would never have made in a hundred, thousand years. People were careless, and did careless things, like carelessly coming down to earth and messing up the balance, and carelessly handing out destructive weapons to their children by killing themselves, and carelessly leaving them to the wolves.

Yang Jian stopped sitting under the trees or on the roof and began spending every stray second on the battlefield, on the training grounds, in the many layers of Heaven.

He killed monsters, and it was easy, because he and Three were a pair that had grown up exactly the opposite how Lady Yaoji wanted it, and that was what had saved them. Maybe, if they had been like this from the start, _nothing need have burned_.

"Are you delirious?!" Three had stood up, glaring at him in the last time he'd laid on the ground without a care.

"…People always invoke insanity when they hear something they don't want to hear." Yang Jian sat up, balancing his arm on a knee. "You know I'm right. You know it, Three."

_There once was a princess, and she ruled the office of desire in Heaven, and she was charged with the duty of limiting gods' and deities' mortal desires such as affection, greed and ambition. This was a very important duty._

_She failed._

Three's teeth were gritted together so hard he thought he could hear it. "Well I'm not  _people,_  Second Brother. I'm your goddamned sister — and she's our goddamned mother. What the hell would you suppose we should have done?"

"Three…"

 _"Don't call me Three!"_ Three screamed.

Yang Jian's lips parted, his eyes widening. Three stood there, dazed at herself, at that uncontrollable outburst.

Slowly, tentatively, she said, "What do you suppose we should have done?"

"She should have told us the truth." The third eye on Yang Jian's head flitted to her, the others looking away to stare at a fixed point. "The truth of what we are."

Being human was not so much as an insult to him. It was a fact. Facts only hurt when he let it.

It's so hard not to let it, sometimes. So he pretends he doesn't.

 

* * *

 

"There once was a mother, and she gave up her powers to create that Lantern that will always protect you, and was imprisoned beneath Peach Mountain for treason. She was—"

No. She wasn't innocent.

She burned. Just like the estate, just like his nobility, just like the arrow he had shot into the sky and shrivelled up in flames.

 

* * *

 

The soft glow of a curtained sun, a different sun, projected its rays into the translucent barrier of the First Layer. The barrier, a slew of protections and enchantments that danced like the thin makeup of a bubble, refracted the light into different colours. It shone over the still mirror of a lake, veiling the water in a pale lilac. There were fish in the water, with scales that blinked like stars as they glided.

Erlang Shen knelt on the cold stone floor of the Yaochi, one hand upon his knee, one hand pressed to the ground.

"Everything you are," a slow, cold voice said, "Is a testament to your ambition and power. It is a testament to Heaven's mercy. A mercy that does not come along often, you understand?"

_Mercy? Or a retraction?_

"Your Servant understands flagrantly."

A silence. A darting of eyes between nervous palace guards, standing behind shields and spears at the flank of the courtyard. A gentle ripple of water on the mirror-like lake, bending it.

"You are not my nephew."

The only sound that carried was the empty clink of beads upon the Emperor's headdress.

Strange. The only time the Jade Emperor had ever admitted this fact was when he was denying it. But he was Heaven's judge, he was Heaven's king, and what he said would rewrite the rules of the cosmos. Rewrite reality.

"Do not mistake my obedience for appeasement." Erlang Shen's eyes bore into the floor, hard and piercing. "Your Servant is a soldier of Heaven, and nothing else. He vies for nothing else."

"No. That was not my intent," the Emperor said. "You are not human, and you have the eye of Heaven's justice. You are a hammer made of silence and power, the pinnacle of Heaven's strength." He paused. "What, do you think, is Heaven's greatest duty? Why, do you think, gods, goddesses and deities, ourselves have this divinity? This preeminence?"

It took effort, like each word was paving a way to the other, for him to say it.

Erlang Shen — Yang Jian — thought about it. "Law and order is the only thing that holds this world together. Without it, the mortal world loses its balance. It will be chaos and anarchy. Order," Erlang Shen said, "Is my  _god."_

The only things gods worshipped were ideals — ideals which were principles, principles which were rules, rules which were law. Which separated right from wrong, and which Yang Jian had strived to build in himself all along.

The Jade Emperor sat back into his seat, his mouth parting. "Are you willing to be wielded by your god?" the Emperor asked.

Without hesitating, Erlang Shen smiled at the floor, saying, "I already am."

The Emperor huffed. "Then you do not serve me."

"Your Servant serves you so long as Your Imperial Highness serves justice and order."

"Then," the Emperor said, "it is one and the same."

The Emperor pondered more upon this. "Not one person outside those doors," the Emperor reached out, pointing at the great gates shut tightly behind Erlang Shen, "Not one of them would ever have the audacity to say to me what you have said to me, Erlang Shen. How dare you."

The corner of Erlang Shen's lip quirked up. "Then I ask for your forgiveness, Your Imperial Highness."

"Lift your head."

Erlang Shen did.

"Come closer."

He did as well, dropping to his knees mere metres from the lakeside throne.

The Emperor looked into his eyes. He kept looking until he looked past his eyes, looked so intently that Erlang Shen knew that the thing he wanted to see was not him at all.

"…You don't have her eyes."

 

* * *

 

The Sky Eye could see through all facades, could discern the face of a demon beneath the veneer of a human's and see through the barriers of magic put up by Heaven, the protections and murmured spells. The Sky Eye could see through illusions too, could make out the distorted edges of a picture like water falling off feathers, could see on and on with a thousand mile stare, see the surface of the moon like it was right in front of him.

Erlang Shen was the Truth Seer.

Yet there was a blindness to this: he could only discern what he could see, not what he heard.

He could not tell if the Jade Emperor had meant what he said.

 

* * *

 

Erlang Shen stood in the middle of a village, adorned in an intricate armour of silver, with shining patterns of scales, plates of bewitched parts, and a belt of dragon hide. The rickety old village around him was made of wood and stone, petite little houses that crumbled and peeled from the elements. He looked around, eyes sweeping the terrain with deadly accuracy. He gestured behind him.

"Burn it."

His six best men came forward, lighting their stakes on heavenly fire.

The village burned.

Three descended from her post not a mile away, producing the Lantern with gritting urgency. She lifted it high and reached forward, as if she were pushing the light emitted from it towards the blaze herself. The Lantern pulsed, pulsed, swallowing up the fire in mere moments.

Erlang Shen felt it too, the force of the Lantern flowing in and out of him, a suffocating stint that passed like a nausea. The only reason why he hadn't dissipated on a molecular level was because the light had a master and a mind, and he was not its target. He took a breath.

"What are you doing?!" Three cried. "What on earth are you doing?! There are people in those houses! There are villagers holed up in those huts!"

"I know."

Three, the urgency pushed from her face, faltered. "What?"

Erlang Shen gestured towards the village. "This settlement has been overrun by flesh-sick demons. A kind of demon that's bite causes a human to have taste for themselves. Cannibalism."

The anger faded from Three's face, turning into something jagged and hard. Something more closed off. It disgusted her. "Are the demons dead?"

"Not all of them."

"Then pick them out, and finish the job."

"There's no need."

Three shifted. "What do you mean?

Erlang Shen turned and blinked at her with his three eyes. "What else is there to mean? These humans are compromised. They will crave flesh for the rest of their lives, and they will not be able to help it no matter how hard they try — it's a mercy to put them out of that misery."

Three considered this. "There is no cure?"

"There is no cure."

Three turned her head, and tucked a stray piece of hair out of the way. "Then burn away."

 

* * *

 

He stood in the ruins of a doctor's house, a doctor that had fed his patients poison, poison collected from the remains of demons. They were turning the humans, forcing them into uncomely shapes, forcing them to bleed from the mouth, to want to taste other's blood too.

Erlang Shen razed the house down, and Three was at his side, holding the doctor's head. She tossed it into the ruins, her face impassive.

"Burn it," he commanded. And his six men did.

"Lord Erlang," the eldest of the six said. "The list of patients treated by the man."

Erlang Shen glanced upon the records. More than two hundred people in this place. "Find them," he said. "End them."

He'd taken one step out of the flames when Three turned on her heel.

She clasped his shoulder. "Second Brother. That's crazy."

"Crazy?" he spun around, brows furrowing together. "They are in pain."

"They might be able to be saved."

"Might be?" Erlang Shen echoed, irritated. "Might be is not enough. It could takes years to put them back into human shape. It will only cause them pain. It will only cause more and more suffering."

"So our solution is to slaughter them?! They were sick — and they trusted their doctor, and you want to behead them?

"I want  _you_  to behead them," Erlang Shen said harshly. "And anyone else they have come into contact with. Ransack the earth, if you must."

Erlang Shen marched past her, unrolling the next scroll. "I want us to follow the orders we're given. I will salt the ground when we are done and no one else will fall victim to this demonic influence."

_Anything they can do, we can do better. We are gods._

_And we'll be perfect._

_"Yang Jian,"_ Three echoed, her eyes wild with —  _hurt,_ with a resounding twist of emotion. "So this is what we do now? What other things are you hiding from me? Do we light markets on fire now? Do we oust children in hay huts?"

Isn't ' _ruthless'_  just another meaning for perfection?

 

* * *

 

Let me tell you a story.

There was a family of sheep. This family of sheep lived in a house. The house was in the middle of the woods. In the woods was a pack of wolves.

Everyday, the sheep had to leave their house to find dry grass to eat, and everyday, the wolves circled the clearing to peck them off, eating their entrails until they were empty skins, licking them down to the bone. They circled them in the woods, always circling.

One day, the sheep could not take it anymore. So they went out of their house, collected kindling from the woods, and started a fire. They fanned this fire big and high until it burned down the woods, and it burned down the grass, and it even burned down their house.

But the wolves, with their jaws so big and their stomachs too bottomless and their hunger so terrible, simply ate the fire.

And then they ate the sheep.

 

* * *

 

When Two was once a kid who became a gangly teenager, he was met by the gaggle of older kids, who became a gaggle of young men. He had been walking alone, and they were in a large group, and he wasn't afraid of people he didn't like.

By then, he already knew his own strength. He knew what his fingers could do when they curled up tight, or what marks his knuckles could make if something made contact, how the skin could break and bloody, and he would feel something primal and large reach out of his chest. 

When Yang Jian was young, he crippled people over a stray dog. He punched another disciple bloody over an ugly comment.

It was a lawless, chaotic slip — an unacceptable slip —  _chaotic people wasted their lives, and they didn't survive, and they were rowdy and stupid and dangerously impulsive, rotted in the head, and so damned careless..._

There is no one up there limiting desires.

A thought: Yang Jian once broke a man's nose with his bare palm, drawing so much blood. He doesn't remember what they were fighting over.

On the rare occasion Yang Jian did this, he might apologise. He might.

But no matter if he does or doesn't — the truth is that he liked it.

 

* * *

 

(Two and Three were never sheep.

And the one thing Yang Jian did remember about that fight with that man? How it  _felt.)_

 

* * *

 

"Let me tell you a story," one mother, a human mother, said to her children. "There once was a merciful and miraculous sage who was a very important god in Heaven. His bearing was refined, his visage noble, and his three eyes shone. His axe had split open Peach Mountain when he rescued his mother, his bow had killed the twin phoenixes of Zongluo. Widespread was his fame for killing the Eight Demons, and he was good and just in every way."

"He's a hero," her daughter coos, eyes twinkling. "Gotten rid of so many bad demons! With his spear, and his magic eye!"

"Yes, yes," the mother grinned, tucking her children in, "The Sky Eye, a blessing among blessings."

“Tell me the story about him stopping the flood,” her second daughter started, “That one where he impresses another god and they give his dog the gift of speech!”

“Hm…alright. There once was a great and terrible flood…”

The humans told his story, a hundred, a hundred thousand, a million million repetitions going round and round. He was a _god,_ beloved and worshipped and honoured by the very beings he was once scorned by, because in these stories that would never, ever cease for as long as time went on — even in a far-flung future where humans no longer believe in him — people would tell his story the way they heard it. 

Like a circle. 

* * *

 

Two opens his eyes.

Rain patters across the hardwood floor, wind howls through the half-collapsed roof. His chest heaves, shock and confusion coursing through his veins like a dam burst free. People start screaming behind him. His head hurts. 

He is a boy braced in the wreckage of his home, arrows wedged upright in the walls and floor. His father and older brother are already dead. Effective immediately, he is the heir of the noble House of Yang.

Yang Jian runs outside.

There is something in the clouds.

There is. There is.

 _There was!_ He wasn't dreaming. His eyes never deceive him. He saw it — hazed and irresolute like looking at the ground in the depths through water.

There was a man, flanked by billowing plumes of flags, and he raises his arm and—

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Between writing chapter 3 and 4 of this, I read a Star Wars fic that was so amazing, so beautiful, so thought provoking I started to write my own fic inspired by it. Especially about the concept of stories-within-stories - this is where, "Let me tell you a story," came from. As well as the theme of 'fire.' 
> 
> I would like to credit and thank 'peradi' who wrote 'have you heard,' which has blown my mind so thoroughly!
> 
> ———
> 
> Also thanks to my uni professor who said something so cool to do with "blindness" in certain governance philosophies I wrote that shit into a theme in my fanfic too. You can find inspiration in the strangest places. 
> 
> On the "Yang" family:
> 
> There's already a famous Yang Family in real life in Chinese history but Yang Jian and Yang Chan's family literally existed eons before them - sometime before the second Chinese dynasty (before feng shen bang/ investiture of the gods) - so they’re different. Yang Jia Jiang/ Generals of the Yang family happens much, much later in the Song dynasty.
> 
> Also - that's real Princess Yaoji/瑶姬 and husband Yang Tianyou/杨天佑 backstory. He gives a goddess his human heart to save her. And she, who literally judges people's hearts and desires, is blown away by what she sees. So they share it. Unbelievably romantic tbh.
> 
> Also - I think I will finish this fic before continuing writing Unadmitted Defeat - there's certain things that need to be decided before I can continue - just so the end of Unadmitted lines up with Black Sheep. 
> 
> Do review, I want to talk to you about Lotus Lantern I love it so much alsdkfj;


	5. They said she died a martyr

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is a no win situation:
> 
> You once went with your brother and took a chance that ended up in crumbling mountains and falling suns and a service full of regret.
> 
> In front of you right now: that similar, elusive chance. 
> 
> You reach out and grab hold of it with your teeth, never minding about how you look, and fight. Your husband, your child, die a horrible death. 
> 
> You surrender without a fight, relinquish that chance before you ever take it. Your husband, your child, will still die a horrible death.
> 
> Might as reach out.
> 
> \---
> 
> Thank you to random-sweetpotato on tumblr who created this gorgeous art of [Sanseng Mu!](https://earl-of-221b.tumblr.com/post/165642873459/how-the-black-sheep-breathe-chapter-1-anearl)
> 
> And thank you to qdeanna on tumblr and ao3 who helped me beta read this chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Er Ge" (二哥) is "Second Brother."
> 
> "Ge" is Elder Brother.

 

Yang Chan once had a very distinct vision of how her life would go.

She would dress good and act good and keep the hothead in her in check. Learn to dance and embroider and sing — you know — things noblewomen were supposed to be good at. Supposed to be proud of.

Be introduced to a rich gentleman, retire to another sprawling estate. Then live a life of luxury commissioning plays she so loved, sitting down for paintings.

She would marry for love.

How presumptuous.

 

* * *

 

"This is an ambush," Erlang Shen said, eyes plastered to a map that sprawled the full length of the table, little flag pointers jutting about here and there all along it. "I want someone at every point of exit, especially in the sky — _Three_ — so you finally care to grace us with your presence."

The six soldiers in the room slunk into the corners as she approached, swapping looks with one another. Without the power of an imperial seal, Erlang Shen could only command the few in the room. They were good and loyal, yes, but not the army they had trained. 

Sanseng Mu crossed her arms. "You said it was important. More important than demolishing a few demon nests, I hope?"

Erlang Shen shifted something on the map. He shut his eyes, habitually touching his forehead. "Rebel criminals, actually. And yes. It is important."

He turned his head, beckoning the soldiers to leave them.

Sanseng Mu waited for them to putter across the room and shut the door behind them. "What is it? An assignment requiring the both of us for once?"

"It's not about assignments. Heaven is…pleased by our work," Erlang Shen opted to say. "I've heard there will be a palace built for us."

"Oh?" Sanseng Mu paused, considering those words. Whatever she'd expected to hear, that wasn't it. "That's it, then?"

Erlang Shen sat down in one of the seats, poured himself cold tea. "Yes. It's important, is it not?

He heated it up with magic, then offered it to Sanseng Mu. She took it. "…Yeah. It's great."

"Then why do you sound like I just poisoned your tea."

"You didn't!" Sanseng Mu drank the tea in one gulp.

Erlang Shen looked at her, stone-faced. "I know I didn't."

"I mean, I didn't sound like anything. I sound like me."

"You're disappointed. Should I have poisoned your tea, Three?"

"I think you should learn to actually make tea before you try to poison it. This tastes disgusting."

"It may have steeped too long in the pot. I didn't make it."

"Excuses, excuses."

"So you don't have anything to say about the palace?"

Sanseng Mu quirked her lip. "It's fine. I just didn't expect it. I know we attend court events now, but." She made a face. "I'm just not convinced the Emperorthinks of us very _fondly."_

"Fondly?" Erlang Shen said flatly. 

"And the Queen Mother. The only way he'd talk to us is through her." Sanseng Mu took a moment to look at the map, making note of how few targets there were. "…They're not sending you or I on assignments they usually wouldn't have hesitated to."

"Why  _should_ they send us over something trivial?" Erlang Shen piped up. He drew a chair up to the table and sat down. "We're valuable. And we're effective. And the Emperor has acknowledged us. That's all."

_There is the sound of running barefoot through the undergrowth. Or chasing something running from her in the dark. Or the wind, from falling from a great height to land on two feet. Or the sounds people made when things went up in flames and she split her one sword into two._

_All of it, roaring in her face._

Erlang Shen — Yang Jian — couldn't hear it. He poured her another celebratory cup.

"We've achieved what we've always wanted," he said, his lips turning up. He regarded her with an open, genuine smile, an invitation to share the moment.

She hesitated. "—Yeah."

 

* * *

 

There once was a pair of twins who had reaped the benefits of each promotion, who had outperformed the gods that looked down on them, finally shared the same rank as them —  _outclassed them._

They got what they wanted. 

 

* * *

 

A thought: ask someone what the finish line looks like.

The endgame, the point at which they have achieved all they could want. 

Yuding Zhenren would say - growing old, surrounded by disciples who have lived their best lives having achieved things, having created art, done justice, experienced love. Yuding Zhenren has made the right choices, seeing nothing but images of red banners, tables overcrowded with food, and disciples who have their own disciples, who still hand down his teachings that were kind and good. He doesn't need to wonder what the future holds. He cannot see it anymore.

Erlang Shen would say - becoming a god, undisputed in this truth. His eye is a blessing, not a deformity. He's respected. He belongs. He has power. His men are loyal. He has a home in a palace. His sister is by his side. He knows who he is and what he wants. The next battle will begin soon. He will come back triumphant. 

A girl called Three would say - getting a home education, becoming as wonderful as their mother, carrying on the Yang name, protecting her brother who is picked on because he is different. Let that distinct vision of her life play out. 

A goddess called Sanseng Mu would say - fighting rebels? - _no_ \- staying in heaven, the place her mother came from - _or_  - of course, following Yang Jian - _but he isn't the same anymore..._ So what, then?

 

* * *

 

Sanseng Mu stood on the highest lookout, staring down at Heaven below.

She thought about living in a palace in the sky. She thought about being among the stars she used to stare at on the roof of their home with Two. Stars above and below, like an ocean. Here, it was completely airless. It was dark and starry where the atmosphere finally ended, and the palace of heaven lay below her.

Sanseng Mu looked down on it, considering the sheen of the first layer. It, too, was beautiful, like diamonds amid nothing rough, like looking through crystalline glass.

Sanseng Mu needed to breathe. She turned to fall when someone else's magic touched down on the balcony edge. Sanseng Mu spun, her hand moving on its own to touch the hilt of her sword.

She listened for the sound of _running barefoot, chasing in the dark, wind howling at terminal velocity, cackling fire..._

No roaring. No warning. 

"I didn't mean to startle you," they said, and Sanseng Mu felt a slight pang of embarrassment as the newcomer's eyes fell to her weapon as well.

She could feel her beleaguerment, the slight fear and apprehension laying thick in her aura. What would have been an uncivil display was brushed off by Sanseng Mu, who knew who this woman was.

"Forgive my manners," the goddess said, as if guessing Sanseng Mu's own thoughts, and handed her a neatly wrapped excuse by apologising for nothing. "My name is Chang'e. They call me the goddess of the moon." Chang'e bowed politely, but without looking down. She kept her eyes on Sanseng Mu's.

"No," Sanseng Mu said, matching her tone. "It was this one who was brash. My gratitude for overlooking it." She breathed in nothing, forcing the lantern to pulse once in her lungs so she could stay longer. Light beamed from beneath her collarbone, outlining its shape.

"I am Sanseng Mu."

"Yes, I know."

Chang'e walked to the edge of the balcony, as did Sanseng Mu. Sanseng Mu rested her elbows on the rails. Chang'e kept her arms to herself.

"I often come here to admire it," Chang'e started. "Heaven, that is."

Sanseng Mu watched Chang'e surreptitiously as she resumed what Sanseng Mu had stopped — looking at Heaven below. "It's beautiful," she said, and meant it, but only because she ought to say something.

"It is."

Sanseng Mu made a pleased sound. "I would have never thought I could stand this far off the ground."

"Is that why you're always looking?" Chang'e asked.

When Sanseng Mu pursed her lips, her eyes looking like she'd lost where this was going, did Chang'e shyly smile. "I see you come up here to look, many times. But you look down, more often than you look up."

"It's just beautiful," Sanseng Mu said. "I suppose it is just an indulgence." Sanseng Mu turned to face Chang'e, the superficial pleasantness gone from her voice. "I used to do this from the ground. My brother and I would make it a sport, of sorts. I just wanted to see what it was like up close, where Heaven ended. We're stationed in the Twenty-first Layer, you understand," Sanseng Mu's brow furrowed. "Why do you ask?"

"No reason why," Chang'e said. She shifted, pointing into the dark. "I reside up there, on the moon."

On the moon, the very same one Sanseng Mu had seen every single night, the very same one everyone saw when they looked up at any moment. Sanseng Mu supposed in reverse, Chang'e could see them too.

"I can only see so far as the going-ons in Heaven," Chang'e elaborated. "Things happen in Heaven. There's nothing on the moon. Just me, the Jade Rabbit, and a few maids kind enough to come up once in a while."

"It must be lonely."

"It…" Chang'e said, slowly changing what she was going to say. "…I manage."

_It is?_

_It isn't?_

The lantern pulsed once more. "I didn't come to look," she said suddenly, but truthfully. "I came to imagine. If I had to stay in heaven for the rest of eternity, what would it be like?" Sanseng Mu mused, dreamlike. "What would it actually be like, being in the place I used to look up to?"

"Cold." Chang'e crossed her arms, lifting her long, white sleeves from off the floor. "It is cold, and far, and it  _is_  lonely. You shouldn't choose this place, Seng Mu. It's not good to look too far beyond one's aspirations."

From an outsider's perspective, it sounded like a thinly veiled insult. A beautiful, cold goddess speaking down to a lone demigod, too far up for anyone to witness.

Sanseng Mu looked at her, this time  _really_  looked. Chang'e's quiet, apprehensive aura was not a stunt at making a display, or relaying a message, or anything. She simply didn't have the kind of control to hide it away like she did the rest of her — her clasped hands, her feet closed together, the tight way she held herself like she was taking up too much space. She wore a white, billowing hanfu with elegant ornaments in her hair. She was slightly windswept, too — perhaps she had come down in a hurry as soon as she saw Sanseng Mu was about to leave. Nervous to talk to another goddess?

"I'm sorry about your husband," Sanseng Mu said starkly, and meant it too.

Chang'e's eyes snapped up. Her lips parted, wobbling as she inhaled at something. Mist wafted from her lips.  _Cold,_  she'd said.

"I was human only a mere few years ago. You know, I still remember it. But it's as if everyone else has forgotten. Moved on."

But Sanseng Mu had not forgotten where she had come from. They were the similar in that respect. She closed her eyes a moment, listening to the quiet calm above Heaven. Then Sanseng Mu straightened, walked up to Chang'e, and put a hand on her arm. "Why don't you show me the moon. Then we can look down on Heaven together." She smirked.

 

* * *

  

"Yang Chan," her master once asked, years and years and years ago, sitting at her bedside after a bout of sickness.

"Yeah?"

Yuding Zhenren flattened his clothes and crossed one leg over the other. "You don't think I'm crazy, do you?"

"… _Um."_ She took a second too long to respond.

"That's ok," Yuding Zhenren said, patting his own leg gingerly. "That's fine. Everyone's a little bent out of shape. So long as you know  _you're_  not crazy."

"…Uh…" Sanseng Mu—Yang Chan— tried to get up, dislodging the cold cloth on her forehead which slipped, covering her eyes.

Yuding Zhenren stopped her, then moved to put the cold cloth back in place. "No one else can hear it, can they?"

Yang Chan froze in the bed. Her cold sweat evaporated in an instant. "…What?"

"Whatever you're hearing, whatever you're feeling — just know it's not craziness," Yuding Zhenren said, so much more serious than his usual self Yang Chan felt a surge of alarm flow through her.

She rocked forward, grasping his hand. "You can hear it?!" she said, voice still broken from sickness, "Master, you can feel that —  _rush — that wind?"_ Yang Chan broke down a little, her chest hiccuping.

"No," he admitted with a shrug. "You're the only one who can. But it's alright to trust it."

Yang Chan narrowed her eyes. "…Why does it sound like running? Like falling — like being blinded-sighted?" she asked, mouth dry. "…Why doesn't — why can't anyone ever hear how _loud_ it is?!"

"Don't worry, don't worry," Yuding Zhenren reassured, pulling her bedcovers up. "I was just afraid that you were afraid. So long as you aren't, then I can leave you to it." He winked, his eyes twinkling. "Instead of feeling things like you do, I see things. You probably guessed. But I only see things that haven't come to pass yet. But you, your intuition is always correct isn't it?"

Yuding Zhenren huffed and smiled. "You're not like me, because you can trust yourself. It's not a curse, Chan'er — it's a blessing."

"Trust it, is that what you're saying?" she mumbled out loud.

"Trust yourself," Yuding Zhenren said, patting her cheek.

 

* * *

 

It was snowing. She was caught in the middle of it, a pure white downpour of snow, though not wild and windy enough to be a full blown storm. In the distance, the cold slopes of a mountain made the world look jaggedly sharp. Sanseng Mu walked through the whiteness, unbothered by it, walking towards the large moon hanging above. She'd never been here before. Where _was_ here?

She scrunched her nose, her eyes narrowing bitterly. Yesterday, the moon was a thin crescent, but today it was suddenly round and full?

"…I'm in a dream."

"Yes."

Sanseng Mu spun around, her eyes darting furiously from side to side. "It's you."

Chang'e was wearing white. She was beautiful, but in that strange way where certain things were made for looking, not touching, not to interact with. Like a painting, or a statue, or a porcelain doll on an altar. Her face was deathly white.

"What are you doing here?" Sanseng Mu asked, her flight or fight responses suddenly flickering alive, in competition with each other. "What are doing in my dream?"  _Get out._

Chang'e did not answer her question and instead told her something else. This was important, somehow. Like a voice fading away, like a door shutting closed, like the smell of smoke fading into the distance.

"I heard them talking, a few days ago. It's not good," she said. "They said two is too dangerous, that it's hurting the balance. That there needs to be a cull."

"What are you on about?" Sanseng Mu huffed, indignant. Her hands balled into fists. "… _Two —_  Yang Jian?"

Chang'e shook her head. "No. The two of you. The two of you being up here." Her fingers curled, scrunching fistfuls of fabric. "...Haven't you wondered why they won't send you out anymore? They don't want to hand over the army seal anymore, they..."

It started back up again, twice as bad.

The world roared around her, changing the atmosphere, turning the snowfall into a blizzard, making Chang'e's dark hair fly and obscure her pale face. But then she unlevelled, her mouth opening in surprise like — like  _she could hear it too._

So there  _is_ danger.

Her intuition — her other sense is always right.

"Who's after us?" Sanseng Mu started, her standing stalwart in the storm, Chang'e slumped over, unbalanced. "What'll they do?!"

Chang'e swallowed, taking a breath to talk against the roaring. "I've come to warn you. Heaven isn't safe anymore. Not for the two of you."

In the dimly lit space with only the barest outline of their silhouettes, Sanseng Mu sighed. The moment she did, the roaring, toiling snowstorm stopped. Chang'e gasped at the abruptness of the storm's end.

"Oh," Sanseng Mu said. "Thanks for the warning. I think…I must have already known."

 

* * *

 

Often, people would look back on the shuddering gut feeling they once ignored and regretted it deeply.

Yang Chan would not.

 

* * *

 

There were others before them. Gods who descended from heaven, fluffed around on earth in secret and left everything behind them in ruins. There were half human girls who were cleaved in half and no one had ever tried to stop it. There were half god boys who were thrown away like garbage, and no one dared to pick them off the ground from the corner street. There were others, told to stop acting demonic, told to keep their mouths shut, and died when their powers grew too much like an infection and too little like it was just another part of them, meant to be there. They died forgotten, anonymous and taboo.

When people spoke of survival, what they really meant was how long you could delay the inevitable.

"So it's goodbye. Just for a short while."

"No," Yang Jian said, this time unable to keep the irritation from leaking into his voice. "That's absurd. Our army needs you — our soldiers need us!" Yang Chan watched him close his eyes for a moment, affected by his own lapse of composure. "If you think resigning is going to make them—"

"I'm not doing it for them." Sanseng Mu sipped her glass. Her fingers were hot, her voice bordering on tipsy, but she'd made the decision months ago and was sure enough to stake her life on it. Just a little bit tipsy. "Think about it, Two. We're getting no assignments, no orders — we're getting jack-all of anything from them!"

Yang Jian's hand balled into a fist on the private balcony of their warship. It was dark, the only light coming from a half moon. He hesitated as he watched Sanseng Mu toss the empty cup overboard. Before going inside to get another, Yang Jian reached out a hand, pieces of a cup manifesting just in time for Sanseng Mu to take it. There were a dozen better times for her to tell him this, but for some convoluted reason she thought it best to get it over with.

"Don't worry. You'll be fine. You're better than them. You're better than them all and you know it."

Yang Jian's fingers unfurled. He leaned over the balcony, watching the clouds go by with an unsure look, as if he was wondering if the sun would ever come up. Sanseng Mu thought he looked pathetic. He was nothing but, and he shouldn't look like that, ever.

"You are too," he settled on saying.

Sanseng Mu nodded feebly. "They hate you for it, you know."

Yang Jian shortly chuckled under his breath. "You, too."

She smiled.

"I _am_ leaving. I've already made up my mind."

"Three—"

"Ge, listen!" She chucked the next cup off into the clouds. "Listen. They're never going to let us get ahead. You know that, don't you? Everybody knows that! No matter how many dissenters we oust, no matter how many victories we glean off our backs, we're never going to — you know what I'm trying to say."

"I don't."

"You do." Sanseng Mu huffed. Under the half moon, her armour shone a glossy silver. Next to her, Yang Jian was in a plain shirt tied together with a sash belt. Wasn't he cold?

_(It got unbearable — the roaring. Rolling on and on in her head, like a storm creeping ever closer in the distance. Always in the distance. Always coming closer. One day, at the end of the roaring, Yang Chan would finally miss the warning, and that would be the end of it. It was coming to a head. It was coming to a head and she didn't know what the hell it meant anymore — what to do, what to do, what to do about it.)_

"They're suspicious of us. Intimidated. We have the motive, and we have the power. Our army is growing too large, the soldiers' confidence in us is soaring."

Yang Jian lifted his shoulders up and down, an uncomfortable shrug. "You think, after we finished the Western Armada. After Sir Ying, we'll be next."

"We'll be offed just like them," she said truthfully.

 _(But there is_ always  _a warning. Her six sense is always right.)_

Yang Jian turned on her, frowning, the shadows on his face twisting. His silhouette cast Sanseng Mu into darkness. "Then let it be me."

"Oh, please." Sanseng Mu waved him off. "I know how much you need this. You couldn't stay away from the barracks for a week."

"Don't be brash."

"I'm just stating the facts. You like those."

"We built this army together. They refuse you and they take out half of where their assets lie."

"I already posted my resignation. I'm leaving. Banished. To the mortal world."

Yang Jiang's third eye jolted.

Sanseng Mu rolled her eyes. "Nobody called it that. _Banishment,_  goodness!" she said, a curious lilt on the word like it was coated in velvet. "But that's what it is. They're afraid and you know Uncle-dear won't hesitate. This way, we both go free. I get to never look him in the eyes again and you get your  _'better.'"_

She curled her fingers around the rails, cracking the old wood. "You're going to get your power and you're going to hold onto it like my life depends on it, okay? Promise me, you'll get where we should be already. You'll get to the top and when you're there..." she trailed off. "...You'll get what you want."

"...What we wanted."

"No. Just you."

Yang Jian's throat trembled. "You never think things through, Three," he said, looking up, his breathing harsh. "Did it ever occur to you to ask how I felt first?! To come by my goddamned penthouse and put in a good word for your fantastic idea beforehand? Even Xiao Tian Quan could tell you it's a rotten-idiot move before you committed suicide to your career!"

"It's strategy! And if I asked you first you'd have jumped at the chance to rip out your own political throat!" she said, and a few lights started up the windows below them and Yang Jian pulled Sanseng Mu from the balcony to hide.

They quietened, backs flat agains the wall as they waited for the lights to go out again. Then they ambled back inside and put a silencing charm over the luxury war room stuck in the air, going nowhere.

"I understand now," Yang Jian said. "This isn't about fighting — this isn't about Heaven — this is about some  _stupid_ notion you've been carrying around since we got here."

"That so?! What is it, then, Second Brother."

"We were never supposed to belong on earth."

"Neither were we supposed to stay in Heaven!"

"Then what else?! You tell me."

Yang Chan shook her head, the corners of her lips flickering upwards. "Wherever our parents, our family went. Where the House of Yang went! It's where we should have been this entire time!"

Yang Jian stopped. He gave her that terrible, disconnected look he often made — not made, just sort of sunk into, falling into some invisible depths where she couldn't reach him anymore — the look that crossed his face when Yang Jian had let something get the better of his control. Slipping away.

The candles behind them had been blown out from the trauma of their powers, pulsing like a forcefield around the room. An odd one in the middle, an open flame fed with oil, was the only one left. It flickered between them, weak like a moth trying to flutter its way out.

"I," Yang Jian said, "—I will not forsake what we have come to be for a useless and meaningless death."

"I know." Yang Chan turned around, the black whip of her hair snapping behind her. "That's why I will go and live on the ground. You will stay and live in the sky. We live."

She scoffed.

"...I just want to _live._ "

Yang Jian took in her words. "Why do you hate Heaven so much?"

_She hears: the sound of running. The sound of falling. The sound of cracked bones, arrow twangs, ash crumbling. His words are like warning bells to her, dousing her spine in ice._

"Do you even _hear_ yourself, Er Ge?!" She stalked forward, her hair falling over her shoulders, darkly framing her face.

"We hate Heaven! We hate it, we always have! I hate this cold, cold palace, with these cold, cold people, and their cold, heartless reign!" she said, her voice rasping like it hurt. "I hate what it's done to us, and I goddamned hate what it's done to you," she said.

_And she hears it roaring, a great, big leviathan cresting large and invisible at her flanks. Her sixth sense is always right._

"What has it done to me, Three? Why don't you enlighten me?!"

"You used to sit with me under the cypress trees and talk about frivolous things," she said. "Now you wipe away your humanity to be more like  _them."_

Yang Jian scoffed. "What are you — still seventeen, eighteen? Us cursing Heaven — you might as well hate that the sky is blue. Look, Three, I'm sorry you can't go back to your perfect little life in your perfect little house, be your perfect, _normal_ human — but understand that that's _never_ been an option for me!" Yang Jian said.

"...We. Have never looked the same," Yang Jian stated. Yang Chan watched his fingers twitch at his side, no doubt desperate to touch his forehead. "That charming little life you look so fondly back upon. It never existed for me." He looked up. "There are no humans with three eyes. And Three? There are no humans with powers like yours." 

Yang Chan's lips trembled. She bit it, every part of herself trying to keep from breaking completely.

"If you still haven't noticed, Three, we _are_ them. We are gods of this realm. Our mother was a goddess of this world."

"Our mother chose to live as a mortal," Yang Chan clenched and unclenched her teeth. "She chose, _she chose_  — we have a choice, Er Ge, we always had a choice."

"Our mother—" Yang Jian said, finally,  _"She chose wrong!"_

The room burst alight. Something had come over her less like a wave and more like an arrow zipping through a chest, the Lotus Lantern coming aflame with harsh, searing light. Yang Chan gasped like the wind was knocked out of her, stumbling backwards. Yang Jian reacted too, throwing his head in the other direction, but Yang Chan heard him cry out, grimacing.

Yang Chan gnashed her teeth together. In a short, stern movement, she plunged her hand into her own chest, pulling out the Lotus Lantern. With a burst of power, she quashed the light.

_"Er Ge?!"_

Yang Chan hung in the distance, not going to him. Her head, roaring. There was a quiet moment where nothing happened. Nothing happening, but everything continued roaring.

Yang Jian simply exhaled, and turned back. His eyes were glazed over, not really seeing Yang Chan even though he was staring right at her.

"I'm fine."

"I didn't mean it."

"Of course not."

"…You didn't mean it either."

"But I did."

Yang Chan bashed a fist into the table. Things lifted off of it — ornately carved map pointers, important, jewelled seals, a loose banner, bronze cups. Only the fist wasn't meant for the table, it was for Yang Jian and  _how did it get like this?_

_She thought —_

_She thought he would always have her back. Instead, she began thinking of quick burnings, thinking of a slower death, a slower type of deterioration — the process of unknowing someone you once knew everything about is so slow and easy. How painless it is. How terrible._

Slowly, calmly, Yang Jian raised his head, his third eye blinking wide open again. "That light is too volatile. You should use it sparingly or it'll hurt you one of these days. It's unpredictable."

Her lips thinned into a low line. "It always lights up for me," she said bitterly. "Just not for you."

She turned around, began walking away.

"Sometimes, I wonder why it doesn't," Yang Jian said.

"You know, now I know exactly why it doesn't," Yang Chan said, spinning around. "You think — you think I'm _blind?_ You think I don't know what it is you do out there on the field? How you do whatever they tell you to do. You _can_ set this aside, Yang Jian. You just don't want to. No, all you want to do is swing your spear and watch things burn, never mind the reason behind the orders you take. You're really _just fine_ with the prospect that the rest of your immortal life is going to be spent killing and burning, killing and burning. You revel in it."

Yang Chan's mouth propped open, and she chuckled humourlessly. "You know what? You really _are_ a god, brother." She turned away.

"If I am a god," Yang Jian said, hesitant, behind her, "Then what the hell else can you be?" 

Yang Chan wanted to leave, jump ship, disappear from the Celestial Realm entirely, but she spun once more, her heart in her mouth, her anger in a pit in her stomach, "You can't have it both ways, Yang Jian! Are we alike, or are we not! Make up your mind, because here's how it's going to be _—_  

_"You go sit on your sky-high horse and be your coldhearted god — and I will go to earth and be my perfect, perfect human!"_

 

* * *

 

Sanseng Mu left the Celestial Realm. Half a century later, Erlang Shen was relieved of his duty.

They never gave Erlang Shen another command. They never had him fight another battle, and they never invited him back into the gleaming, golden city.

As Sanseng Mu sipped warm tea in the middle of a busy teahouse, skimming through a letter, she heard he had vanished, gone away. She'd later learn he was in Guanjiang, only ever leaving the quaint manor grounds in order to slay monsters.

 

* * *

 

In the mortal world, they told a story.

There once was a great many gargantuan, rolling peaks, dappled finely with greenery that made up the powerful ranges called Mount Hua; and in these ranges that brushed high amidst the clouds, there was an overgrown courtyard filled with rotting leaves, and in this courtyard there stood a long abandoned temple.

One day, in the village in the valley below, there was a great and terrible fire. The fire had a voracious, endless appetite, that burned and burned the poor village up. Unable to stop it, unable to do anything while the fire raged, a citizen from this village ran away, ran so deep into the mountains they happened upon the little, abandoned temple.

"Please," she cried, her tears searing lines into her face, her hair flecked with ashes. "Please, there is a fire, there is a fire and we are alone in the mountains, our homes are burning like a pyre, and people are trapped inside, and the smoke is flooding into the sky, and —

_"And—_

_"Is anybody listening?"_

People beg gods for their crops to grow good. They beg gods to bring rain, or bless them with child, or give them good fortune, or good health. They do not expect gods to hear their every inane plea, and they do not beg gods to stop fires they've started. But—

"I am listening," said a goddess, who heard a prayer, who saw a little line of smoke drift up into the air. "Where is the fire?"

 

* * *

 

There once was a great many gargantuan, rolling peaks, dappled finely with greenery that made up the powerful ranges called Mount Hua; and in these ranges that brushed high amidst the clouds, there was a carefully kept courtyard always fussed about by groundskeepers with ardent sincerity, and in this courtyard there stood an extravagantly built temple: the people of Mount Hua called it the  _Seng Mu Temple._

People would trek up the mountains everyday, enduring sun and wind and rain, all in order to go to the temple and pay their respects to a powerful and compassionate goddess.

"Please," a mother asked in the temple, "my child is sick. He is small and cannot breathe well and I worry for him. Please help."

So in the night, when the village was asleep, a goddess walked through the front door of their house and did help.

"Dear Goddess," a young man asked, "my little sister is missing, has been missing for two days and I am frantic. She is eight years old, has mid-length hair, and always carries a red spinning top toy. Please deliver her home."

So in the next day, when the family went out looking, a goddess unhatched a window and sat the girl down into bed.

"Sanseng Mu," many villagers prayed on their knees, burning incense, "there are demons on the mountain that have taken hold of the well. We cannot drink. Our people are picked off. We are afraid. Please aid us."

So in the next hour, when people returned to the village, there were ugly, black stains scrawled all over the well grounds, bits and pieces of claw or tooth littered around.

They went up to the temple, thanking her with bowls of food and gifts, and held festivals in her name. And news of the goddess spread wide and far, news of how Mount Hua was safe from demons, news of how people loved the Mother of Mount Hua, and defended her name, and gave back by helping others.

And people told her story.

"Sanseng Mu," a woman dressed always in mourning asked, "won't you come to see an old friend?"

(And people forgot she was once part of a pair.)

So Sanseng Mu left her hidden house in the village, and flew up to the temple on Mount Hua to see her. "Chang'e Xian?" she started, delighted. "It's so good to see you again!"

 

* * *

 

There were two verdicts.

_The people:_

Sanseng Mu is a goddess who loves and heals and lights up her Lotus Lantern to stop fires. How wonderful, how divine.

_The heavenly constabulary:_

Sanseng Mu is a fool, only half a god, who meddles too much with measly human affairs. They are mayflies. How stupid. How short-sighted.

 

* * *

 

There was also a third verdict.

_The nice old family that lived next door to a beautiful, tall spinster:_

"Hello, Miss Yang! We know you were having trouble growing those leeks in your garden — but look here, we overproduced this year and, well, you were so much help brewing that herb medicine for our Ol' Gran. We'll be happy to share our leeks! Husband, won't you fetch the nice lady some tea?"

 

* * *

 

The Sky crackled with thunder and lightning, bringing down days of torrential rain. Clouds rolled like angry crashing waves, an inverted sea that was swelling up to surge past its dam. Even humans could tell Heaven was in complete and utter uproar.

Sanseng Mu raised her head, looking up at the reverberating commotion, along with thousands —  _millions_ — of other people. Everyone in the hemisphere watching the bottom of a power keg about to blow, watching a smoky veneer of a scuffle, a single demon laying waste to every prestige the sky held, watching a Havoc in Heaven.

 _"C'mon,"_ Sanseng Mu muttered.

Then, a decree resounded loud and clear as a bell, falling on the ears of all celestials that could hear it:

_Erlang Shen has been summoned._

Sanseng Mu looked back down, smiling.

Yang Jian had returned to Heaven.

_Roundabout._

_Returned._

 

* * *

"Sanseng Mu," a warm, reverent voice said, "I am not here to ask for anything. I — I know you're very busy, and there's only so many hours in a day, but I don't think I could live with myself if I didn't come up here every so often to say —  _thank you."_

He looked up nervously, sighing as if a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. "Thank you. For helping an insignificant man from falling to his death. I appreciate it."

"You don't need to come up here five times a month," Sanseng Mu said. "It cost nothing. I did it because I needed to. You owe me nothing."

"Lady Yang?" the man muttered, blinking in confusion. "What do you..."

Sanseng Mu watched the cogs in his head turn before his eyes went wide in understanding. "HOLY SHIT!" He stumbled backwards into an ornament full of candles. "SANSENG MU, HOLY SHIT."

 

* * *

 

Under the trees, grass peeking up between the long sweep of her hair, Sanseng Mu lay beneath the evening light with a human.

 _"In the distance — there is a mountain. On the mountain is a tree."_ Liu Yianchang stood at her side, his chest rising and falling as he sang to her. His voice was one that convinced anyone who heard it that it was well accustomed to singing.

远处有座山， 山上有课树…

_"Beneath the tree is a — hay cottage. In the sky — there is a cloud — slowing turning into fog. The wind on the grou—ound, chases in pursuit…"_

树下有课茅草屋。天上有朵云，慢慢散成雾，地上的风 - 风呀在追逐…

_"In the distance _—_ there is a mountain. On the mountain is a tree. Beneath the tree is a hay cottage. A family lives in the cottage — very, very happily."_

远处有座山， 山上有课树， 树下有课茅草屋，一家人在屋里住，非常非常幸福。

Sanseng Mu, Yang Chan, did not think about a burning pyre of a magistrate's estate, or a palace in the sky. She fell asleep listening to the smooth vibrato of Yianchang's voice.

 

* * *

 

"Lady Yang? Lady Yang? Wake up now. It's night already."

Yang Chan opened her eyes, stretching all four limbs into the air for a moment. "Yes."

Yianchang sat by her side, his smile pulling this way and that as Yang Chan blinked up at him. "We should get going now. It's quite dark."

She yawned again. "What if I don't want to go?"

Yianchang huffed, swishing his hair behind his shoulders. "It's very late, another hour and it'll get cold. We should head back to your place. May I escort you?"

"Where did you learn that song, Mister Liu?"

Yianchang held his arms out behind his back and stretched too. "…Back in my hometown. I don't know exactly who wrote it or where it's from — I just know it as the song my family sings. I used to sing in the house everyday, thinking I could grow up and be an actor in Beijing!"

Yang Chan's smile widened across her face.

"And?  _Gosh, keep going."_

"And then what?" Yianchang chuckled, snapping his arms back and pulling down his sleeves. "My family isn't rich. You would imagine I had a little change of career path — naturally I went to do something even  _more_  impossible."

Yianchang bellowed out in laughter. "Who knew I would get to Beijing anyway. This time as a student trying for the the Imperial Examinations."

"Hmhm…" Yang Chan hummed. "…There's still time until the next one, right?"

"I'm in-between, yes. But I have quite a many months until then." Yianchang straightened suddenly, looking over the horizon brimming with the jagged lines of mountains. "Lady Yang, we should really go now."

"I don't want to go."

Yianchang seemed to stop, his brows going up questioningly. "What's wrong?"

Yang Chan turned away, feeling like there was something coming undone in her, like a damn spilling forth. Something hot and wet burned behind her eyes, burning and burning until they spilled down the side of her face.

Yianchang shifted. He reached out, an inch shy of touching Yang Chan's hand. She could feel the heat in them, radiating, human. Her fingers uncurled.

Yianchang pulled away.

_"…In…In the distance — there is a mountain."_

Yang Chan pushed her hands into fists, and then pushed a fist to her mouth, stifling uncomely sounds.

 _"On the mountain is a tree. Beneath the tree is a — woman,"_ Yianchang sang.  _"The woman is a goddess, and she is crying. She always does what — is needed."_

Yianchang took a breath, squeezing in the syllables to fit the tune.

" _You always do what is asked of you. For the greater good…_ For other people." Yanchang stopped singing. "You tell this lowly one you only do what needs to be done. What do you want,Lady Yang? What do  _you_  — want?"

A long time ago, a girl called Three understood her wants and needs did not align and perhaps never would.

_What Three once wanted: wearing huge hair ornaments, dancing, being a Lady, living and laughing with the extended family under the same roof they'd been living under for generations — being exactly like her mother as she knew her. The part of her that had never had to raise a hand to do something laborious herself._

_What Sanseng Mu needed: to fight demons who harmed others, to listen to people who asked for help, to be someone who could make crops grow and stop diseases, and never turn a blind eye to people who needed her to stop fires. That part of her that wanted to make up for all the time spent fighting for something she didn't believe in, for someone she didn't respect._

_With someone who shared a face and nothing else with her._

What Yang Chan wanted—

"Lady Yang. Tell me. You can tell me and make me forget, I don't mind."

She had never known what she wanted.

"…Think of yourself for one goddamned moment. What is it that you want so much but won't let yourself have? What is up with you—"

"Goddamn, Liu Yanchang!" she cried, making Yianchang flinch, his shoulders pulling back spastically. She'd gotten up and risen off the floor like a weightless feather, hair flying like it was caught in static, tears misting off her face. "What do I want? I want to stay here on this hill! I want to stay in this moment forever!  _Forever."_

Yianchang leaned back on his arms on the floor, a wide but almost vacant expression on his face. He watched her intently.

"You — you don't know how fast-paced the mortal realm is! You don't— don't know how fleeting your existence is. You don't know that — that if you leave today, a lifetime will pass in an instance, and you'll shrivel up and die, while I stay here and think of your song for the rest of eternity," Yang Chan said, her hair flickering around her face. "And I can't sing, Mister Liu!"

Yianchang's mouth parted.

"I met you five years ago, and you age so fast, and you — you have to leave. What do I want, Liu Yianchang? I want you to ask me to stay with you. So we can leave this godforsaken hill and I can still be with you tomorrow!"

She didn't understand. Her aura was reverberating within her, an echo of the powers she held, and tears ran down her face and her lips wobbled and she felt such a keen stab of embarrassment she wanted to fly into the sun and never come back but, but—

Where was the roaring?

"Lady Yang," Yianchang started in a heavy, yearning voice. "…Yang Chan."

There was none.

"I was afraid…you're right, you live forever, I could die tomorrow and the world wouldn't care. You're a goddess, and,  _oh,_ Yang Chan, I'm just a human. I'm just a man who writes Confucian essays and recites analects I've memorised I can't—"

He stopped. His dark eyes filled up with water.

"I can't give you anything."

"Gods, Yianchang," Yang Chan started, swiping her face with the back of her hand. "You're so  _smart_ but such a  _dolt. Can't you see? Can't you see you've given me the world?"_

 

* * *

A long time ago —  _a very long time ago_  — there once was a girl who understood her wants and needs did not align and expected very much that they never would.

It's hard to understand that sometimes things will not change unless you have the courage to let it.

 

* * *

_"I love you so goddamned much," Yianchang said, as he seized her hand with rebellious abandon, and bought it to his lips, and then bought his lips to the crook of her elbow, and then her shoulder, and then her neck, and so on._

_"I love you, Yang Chan. I love you, I love you."_

_Yang Chan hugged him close, wanting to stifle the sudden glaring light coming out of the clothes on her chest._

_"Goddamn, I love you so much!"_

 

* * *

 

On a little wooden longboat drifting lazily down the river, Sanseng Mu giggled as she watched Chen Xiang splash in the water.

"Mum?"

"Hmhm?"

"Why do you bring the lantern with us, night and day?"

She smiled, wondering whether she should answer truthfully or not. She decided for it. "It's not just any old lantern, Chen Xiang," she said, drying him off with a towel. "It's a magical lantern. You've seen it light up by itself, haven't you?"

"Yeah," he giggled as she poked his cheek.

"We keep the lantern with us night and day because it'll protect us. The Lantern is our guardian. It'll keep little Chen Xiang safe."

She didn't explain what the Lantern was keeping them safe from and hoped she never would.

She never had to explain why she and Yianchang had moved from the village to live deep into the mountains, far away from prying eyes. She never had to explain how she simply stopped all correspondence with Heaven, leaving a trail of breadcrumbs far, far away from here. Nor did she have to explain that there were protections in the water that she had cast, protections designed to whisk her family away should the time ever come.

And she would never explain to Chen Xiang that he wasn't like other kids.

Chen Xiang could stay under water for minutes at a time. Chen Xiang could also catch birds with his bare, baby hands, and make flowers grow when he was laughing, and grow all of his hair back when he got it cut, and have his leg healed a day after breaking it climbing a tree.

He was a child, sound asleep in his bed when his kites rose off the floor, flapping their paper wings like birds, whizzing in his room.

"…It's about the sixth time he's done that," Yianchang whispered, for fear of waking him. "He's also made the laundry catch fire. The candles just — they just  _leap_ when he gets too excited…what should we tell him?"

"What do you mean, what should we tell him?" Sanseng Mu sighed, closing the door.

Yianchang shrugged, making a face. "That he's not like other kids. This is going to get —  _not worse, that's not the word I'm looking for_ — this is going to get  _bigger._  He's going to be able to make more things fly around, Yang Chan. Probably not in his sleep, next time. We got to tell him something."

"I'm not telling him anything, Yianchang." Sanseng Mu collapsed onto a seat. "…I want to stay here with you on earth. I want Chen Xiang to just — to have a normal life."

Yianchang grabbed another seat, dragging it over to Sanseng Mu. "I know. I know what you told me. I know how Heaven treats people like our son. I won't have our son hunted for the rest of his life. But Chen Xiang," Yianchang squeezed Sanseng Mu's hand. "He's not safe unless you teach him how to control the power he has."

"No." Sanseng Mu's eyes flickered up. She thought about how magic set unquenchable fires, had crept up on her life, changing everything. She thought about what it had done to her family. What it had done, so, so slowly, to her brother. "I won't inflict that on our son. I won't — I won't let him have to go through what I did, to live out the life I have. I won't allow him to have magic."

Yianchang sighed, closing his eyes. "Then how are we going to keep Chen Xiang safe?"

Sanseng Mu's husband was a good man. He was also straightforward man, who took the imperial exams, was offered a position with endless land and riches, and gave up the title he'd spent years of his life to earn, all to protect their family. He was a good man for keeping Sanseng Mu's secret. But Sanseng Mu knew it didn't make her a good woman for marrying a good man.

There were hard decisions, impossible decisions people had to make. Like fighting other people's wars to stay alive, and lighting fires on other people's houses to keep the power, and leaving everything behind to start a new life with your beloved, start being human again.

 

* * *

 

Sanseng Mu entered Chen Xiang's room as he slept. The kites sailed through the air without a current, like fish through still water. Chen Xiang's aura was like a pool with ripples growing ever larger on the surface.

Sanseng Mu was a mother who would give her son the life she could never afford.

Sanseng Mu — Yang Chan — touched her hand to her chest, beckoning the power of the Lantern alive. And then she touched two fingers to Chen Xiang's chest.

She calmed the ripples. The pool went still.

Chen Xiang grew up thinking how silly he was to believe kites could fly by themselves.

 

* * *

 

"Mum!" little Chen Xiang cried, feet padding on the floor as he burst into the room. "Where can I hide? Where can I hide — there's no time left, Dad's about to finish counting!"

"Oh — uh — the dresser, Chen Xiang!"

"Mum, that's too easy! That's the first place he'll look."

"Behind the dresser! In the corner, quick!"

Sanseng Mu lifted the dresser so as to not drag it on the floor. She moved it off the wall, and Chen Xiang squeezed behind it, chuckling.

 _"Ok I'm done. I'm coming, ready or not—"_ came Yianchang, strutting in from the other room. He only bothered to look under the bed before sighing deeply. "Say, Wife, you haven't seen our son, have you?"

Sanseng Mu, who was sitting at her dresser, admired herself in the mirror. "No? Aren't you playing hide and seek? You think I would sell out my son to  _you?"_

"To  _me?_  His _father?"_  Yianchang put his hands on his hips. "Unbelievable, Dear."

"Maybe you should check outside."

"Maybe I will." Yianchang walked —  _strutted_ — his way outside.

Chen Xiang chuckled from behind the dresser.

_"Hahahahaha — we tricked him! Mum, you're so smart."_

_"Shh. Or he'll come back and then we'll have un-tricked him!"_

 

* * *

There once was a mountain in the distance. On the mountain there were a great many trees, and beneath the trees there was a hay cottage. A family lived in the cottage, and they were indeed very,  _very happy._

 

* * *

 

_"Three."_

 

"Second Brother. Look what the harsh winds have bought to my door. —Or do you prefer Erlang Shen? General? Or perhaps 'Upholder of Divine Law' these days?"

 

"Three…Third sis, if you called me anything but 'Second' I'd never forgive you."

 

"You — oh, Two...You still think I'm wrong? That you're — we're wrong?"

 

"You were always wrong!"

 

"What are we? Wolves dressed in black sheep? Down here, Yang Jian, we're neither. Down here, we're human."

 

"But we are not human."

 

"Go."

 

"Yang Chan?" 

 

"Get out. Go to your faithful battalion, Erlang Shen, and then come at me with everything you and your Heaven have got."

 

When people spoke of survival, what they really meant was:

How long can you delay the inevitable from coming to your door?

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Her skin shreds apart, slamming into a carpet of stones like sanding down her face with sandpaper. Sanseng Mu comes down like a meteorite, crashing headfirst into the ground. There's blood in her mouth, she wants to spit it out. But she doesn't because her head roars and her eyes focus with a snap and Chen Xiang is there in front of her, watching.

She gives him a smile. She tells him to run.

Then she picks herself up and launches herself right back into Erlang Shen's face.

There's a total lack of yelling, she realises, as Erlang Shen thrusts his three-tipped spear, a wild animal pouncing — and Sanseng Mu catches it in the hoop of her criss-crossed blades, she slides them down, disarming him for a moment, but even though she's stopped the spear she hasn't stopped them cutting through the air at quarter speed of light, she lets go to slam her knee into Erlang Shen's solar plexus — enough force to split a sea —

But he slams an elbow down into the crook of her neck— force of an axe on a mountain —

And she spins and evades a second shot, teeth bloody red, locked in a grimace as she diverts the spear with one arm, the other hooking into his shoulder —

He just grabs her neck out of the sky, pulling her off her axis; she's not flying, she's trapped, she's lifted out of the air, spluttering, gasping, seizing for breath like—

_— her twin brother is looking at her like —_

_— her chest bursts alight, burning her apart— god, it burns —_

Like she is in Heaven, so so so far up the world below is but a hazy dream.

_Like she is a freak._

_Two lets go because it burns him as well._

_(He's not Two!)_

_(But he is. Can't you see, stupid Three, he is.)_

She pulls the Lantern from her chest and it's like the sun went out in its presence — her brother covers his third eye, his breathing thinning, beads of aura collecting around his forehead like a canon.

_(It's just that he's changed. Like you have.)_

And she hears Yianchang scream, his voice wracking through the mountains like his life is leaving him, though she can barely hear over the sound of her own roaring static voracious noise and—

and—

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"—there once was a pair of twins," a now old, gurgling man, choking on his own bile, said. "—Who looked the same. Who ran away from the burning pyre of their home, and loved and cared for each other," he said. "…I didn't see this…I didn't see any of this —  _gods!— why_  — I didn't see it!  _Oh_  — Why didn't I see it?  _Why can't I see anything — Why—"_

  

* * *

  

When she stopped being a soldier and started being a goddess, and when she stopped being a goddess to start being mother, Sanseng Mu had no idea that in the end she would end up a  _martyr._ The goddess who fell fighting for the cause of half-gods.

The thing is, martyrs do not mean to be martyrs. They fight the good fight, and die a bad death, and then —

— And then people tell their story the way they want to hear it.

_(Sanseng Mu did not die, she was imprisoned beneath Mount Hua. Sanseng Mu hated the fact she was born a half-god, for all the misery it had caused her. She didn't fall so her son could relive every pain she did, clawing through the morrows to take up arms and drag the magic from his soul out into his hands. She didn't fall so a boy could be wracked with irrational guilt and promise every day to save her. To ignite the part of him she tried to lock away.)_

_(Sanseng Mu wished—oh how she goddamned wished that Chen Xiang could be human. She fought and she fought, all so she could be human, so Chen Xiang could be human.)_

And the people light incense sticks for her in secret, they mourn and sing and they honour her. They love her, for all her compassion. They speak of Erlang Shen as a villain, as a merciless, loveless brute, the traitorous brother who struck her down. They build temples that get pulled apart, then they build shrines in shop corners, on woodland paths and back courts of houses. 

In the mortal world, she is beloved. 

 

* * *

  

But let me tell you a story.

For Sanseng Mu, everything felt circular, everything came back: the princess that did not tell her twins the truth — the daughter that lifted off earth to be a goddess, to be where she was supposed to belong but didn't, but not for lack of trying — her hook swords that spun and spun, arriving at the same point, coming back — the gods of the old order, of the still-crowned Emperor, entering into the atmosphere with death in their hands — the son that will come home once more, but this time to lay waste to the prison erected over the ashes of a little, hay cottage.

It went round and round, back to the same point: a woman who would die for her family, a man who would kill family to enforce the law and order.

A boy, small and alone, unlike them, unlike the Emperor and the Princess, nor the twin brother and sister who at least always had each other, a boy who had nothing and no one.

It was laid out in front of him: the half-god's path, that reached into the sky and into the clouds and only ended when the cold, cold palace, with those cold, cold gods, and their cold, heartless reign, replaced the humanity for something more efficient.

It was a circle.

Sanseng Mu, Yang Chan, didn't know — she would never know until years and years later — that he will break it.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Ask someone what the finish line looks like," is again a segment inspired by Have You Heard. 
> 
> The final segment, "It was laid out in front of him: the half-god's path," is actually inspired by the final lines of 'Looper,' a movie about time loops (which I love, everyone should see it)!
> 
> I hope it was clear that Liu Yianchang was hanging out with Lady Yang as friends after he was saved by Sanseng Mu, then continuously went up the mountain to thank Sanseng Mu, annoying his friend Lady Yang, who finally went up the mountain to tell him 'ok she's not that gr8 she's just me. I'm Sanseng Mu you dolt.'
> 
> The song that Liu Yianchang sings, "In the distance there is a mountain/ 远处有座山," was taken straight from the 2005 Lotus Lantern TV show - you can hear the tune right here (and there's also a Prequel rendition of the song, doesn't go as hard as the original but it does add the 'very, very happy' part. Find it here. )
> 
> Got one last chapter to go, then it's back to the main story~


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